


Still.

by Nightfoot



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Psychological Horror, bottle episode, possibly supernatural, warnings for just about every kind of abuse sans sexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5016025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfoot/pseuds/Nightfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuri finds himself tied to a chair in a basement with quite possibly a murderous lunatic.  She'll let him go if he solves the case of who murdered her family, as long as he ignores all the evidence that points to her.  Trapped and injured, it will be a struggle to accomplish that before his own mind caves to the stress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Footprints

**Author's Note:**

> My third-annual Halloween fic. Partially inspired by real-life unsolved mysteries and partially inspired by Stephen King's Misery. Please be advised the rating is for violence, gore, and generally disturbing topics.

Yuri hopped off the Knight wagon with relief.  Getting a ride to Halure was better than walking, but he always felt twitchy after sitting down for a few hours.  He stretched his back, rotated his shoulders, and finished with, “Thanks for the lift, guys.”  

The knights waved goodbye and Yuri set off into town.  He’d said goodbye to Flynn yesterday and then accepted his offer of joining the Knight caravan already going to Halure.  He’d written to Estelle last week and confirmed she was in town today, but busy meeting with an editor for her book until evening.  Yuri had said he might show up tonight, so he had the rest of the afternoon to find passage to Capua Nor - or even all the way to Dahngrest - before heading to her place.  Fortune’s Market was his best bet for a ride.  They were always sending shipments between towns, and it was well-known that he was on friendly terms with their boss.  They’d give him a good rate for hitching a ride with one of their wagons.  

Yuri passed snow banks on his way to the main drag through town.  There was always more snow up here than down in Zaphias.  He’d seen the Quoi woods from a distance on his way here, and the snow glistening on bare branches had been like something off a post card.  That couldn’t be said of Halure’s tree, though.  Every winter it lots its foliage, but it still looked wrong to him.  The beauty of the tree was one of his favourite things about Halure, but when the branches were barren they stood out against the pale grey sky like cracks in a mirror, and it just looked eerie.  

The market area of Halure was bustling enough to break to creepiness of the tree, though.  Any snow on the street had long been trampled into brown slush.  He spotted the sign for Fortune’s Market’s stall, but someone stopped him before he could cross the crowd and reach it.

“Excuse me.”  A thin hand grabbed his bicep.  “You’re Yuri Lowell, aren’t you?”

The person stopping him was a young woman.  She was a few inches shorter than him, with wavy hair the colour of straw.  It seemed like she’d tried to rein it into a ponytail, but large swaths of hair still settled on her shoulders.  Her face was pale and thin, which could also be said of the rest of her body that could be seen outside her dark red skirt and frumpy sweater.  What Yuri locked on were her eyes, which seemed to have been made for a face slightly bigger than the one she had.  They were cold and grey like a rock in winter, but filled with desperation.  

He nodded once.  “I am.  Who’s asking?”

“My name is Clara Messer.  You have to help me, please.”

She still hadn’t let go of his arm.  Her fingers were frail and Yuri was certain he could pull out of her grip with little effort, but it was a tad annoying.  “I’m away from my guild right now.  If you need help, you can come to in Dahngrest and hire us.”

“I can’t make it that far.  Please.”  She squeezed his arm.  “I know you helped save the tree last year.  And everyone says you helped the commandant defeat the Adephagos, too.  I don’t know if I can trust the Knights, but I need help… please.”

“What exactly is the problem?”

“It’s my family.”  Tears sprang up in the corners of her eyes.  “They - they’re all dead.  I don’t know who did it, and - and I’m scared they’ll come back for me.”

She was probably a few years older than him, but looked as pitiful as a child.  It was obvious her fear was real and Yuri could feel his resolve weakening. “When did this happen?”

“Just this morning.”  She sniffled asher composure fractured.  “ I f-found them all dead. Someone broke into our house.  I didn’t know what to do.  I walked to town but I’m afraid to go to the Knights.  My father never got along with them and we don’t actually live in town, so I’m afraid they’ll brush me off.  Please, could you just come look at the scene?  You’re friends with the commandant, so maybe if you start the investigation, the knights will have to help me.”

He shouldn’t.  It wasn’t his job to investigate murders and while he didn’t think too highly of Knights in general, he was sure they wouldn’t ignore a murder just because they weren’t fond of the victim.  At the very least, these days they knew Flynn would be livid if he found out.  But, she looked so miserable.  Her family had been murdered this very morning, and Yuri couldn’t help but pity her.  

He sighed.  “Ok, I’ll take a look.  I’m only in town for today, though, so I’m just going to look around and report to the Knights.”

“Thank you!” She threw herself at him in an embrace.  “Come with me.  We live outside of town.”

* * *

 

‘Outside of town’ meant the very edge of the Quoi Woods.  The farmhouse was small and made of old wood.  It had a peaked roof decked in icicles like teeth and a barn so red it clashed with the subdued browns and whites of the land.  The buildings were huddled together about a hundred feet from the Quoi Woods.   “Boy, you guys sure don’t like neighbours, huh?”

“We harvested Nia fruit.”  Clara lead the way to the farmhouse in depressed calm.  “We use scent-based barriers to keep monsters at bay, and grow enough food that we’re largely self-sufficient.”

When they got closer to the front door, Yuri had to stop.  Red footprints led away from the house.  

Clara saw him looking and could only sigh heavily, her breath clouding the air.  “I stepped in blood before running to town.”

Something about the way she acted put Yuri on edge.  He supposed everyone reacted to grief differently.  Her family had been murdered only hours ago; she was still in shock.  Perhaps her world had flipped so badly that she was drifting through a mindless calm.  He couldn’t blame her for her attitude, but it did creep him out.

“In here.”  

The front door swung inward and the stench of blood whacked Yuri in the face.  Clara entered the building and Yuri stopped in the doorway.  After the brightness of the sun shining on the snow outside, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the relative dimness indoors.  Once they did, part of him wanted to go back to not seeing.  

He saw Mr. Messer first.  The body was slumped over the table in the middle of the room, eggs smeared on his face.  There was even more of a mess on his back, where Yuri couldn’t count the stab wounds from all the blood.  There were some in his neck and some in his back, and it was impossible to say which one killed him.  Yuri hoped it was one of the first ones.  

Mrs. Messer wasn’t in any better shape.  She was on the ground, slumped against the staircase, and covered in knife wounds.  One hand lay on her lap, the two fingers nearly severed, presumably from trying to block the knife.

Yuri was used to dead bodies.  He never enjoyed the sight, but he could handle it without losing his lunch. He paced into the room, careful to avoid the drying blood covering the floor and  Clara’s footprints leading to the door.  The third body was at the foot of the stairs, and this was the one that really gave him pause.  Killing kids was just a higher level of evil that he would never understand.  The boy was probably around ten and just as covered in blood as the rest of his family.  

Yuri let out a long breath.  “Is there anyone else?”

“No,” Clara murmured, eyes locked on the corpse of the woman.  

Yuri turned away from the boy.  “This is your mother and father?”

“Yes….”  She pulled her eyes up.  “My mother, Rosa.  And my father, Garrick.  And… my brother, Jonas.”  She lifted a hand to her eyes and rubbed them.  

Yuri left the stairs and approached the back door.  “Tell me what you know.”

“I went to the forest last night.  Our rappigs escaped, so I went looking for them and came home this morning, and…. and I found this.”

Yuri opened the back door.  A single track of footprints led from the woods to the back door.  “When’s the last time it snowed?”

“Overnight.  Why?”

“Hm….”  The footprints were small and unassuming.  Clara’s, obviously, returning from the forest.  The away journey had already been covered by last night’s snow.  The rest of the space between the farm and the forest was filled with an unmarred field of white.  He turned back and closed the door.  “Why did you go to the forest by yourself?  That seems pretty dangerous.”

“The rappigs were my responsibility.  I must not have closed the door to the barn properly, so they got out.  It was my fault, so my father said I had to fix it on my own.  I didn’t find them, though.  I was scared about coming home and telling Father I had failed, but….”

Standing at the back door, Yuri had a good view of the back of Garrick Messer’s body.  He counted five puncture wounds, but surely one or two would have done the trick.  Why keep stabbing him?  “So you spent the night in the woods looking for the rappigs, came home, found them dead, and then ran to town to find help?”

“Yes.”

Garrick’s face was crushed into his eggs.  Yuri had eaten a quick lunch with the knights just before arriving in Halure.  How long was Clara in Halure before she stopped him?  Unless she hung around the house for a few hours before rushing to town for help?  For… whatever reason.  

Yuri returned to the front door and looked out at another barren field of snow interrupted only by three footprint trails.  Clara’s bloody ones leading away as the snow washed the dried blood off her shoes, and then his and hers coming back.  Yuri put his hand on the doorway and spoke with his eyes locked on the footsteps.  “Say… why do you suppose there are only four total sets of footprints around the house?”

“Huh?”  

“At the back, yours coming home.  At the front, yours leaving and then ours arriving.  The murderer came in through the back, though, because they struck your father from behind before he’d even stood up and realized something was wrong.  That’s weird, too.  If a stranger burst in through my back door, I sure as hell wouldn’t keep calmly eating my eggs.”  Yuri’s hand went to his sword.  “I’m no expert, but it kind of suggests the killer was someone he knew.”

He spun around, but Clara was already there.  Yuri’s sword was halfway out of its sheath when the plank of wood struck him across the head.

* * *

 

Yuri felt something tighten around his ankles as he came to.  Ugh… what in the world….  He started to move his feet, but they met resistance.  Pain throbbed through his head but an attempt to lift his arm to rub it met similar resistance.  A groan slipped through his lips and then a cold hand stroked the side of his face.  

“Sh… it’s ok.”

His eyes blinked open, but that didn’t reveal much.  He saw a dark wall, a concrete floor and a staircase heading up off to his right.  Another tug of his hands and feet confirmed they were tied to a wooden chair: his wrists behind his back with another rope around his chest, and his ankles to a bar between the chair legs.  

“What… the hell?”  His head throbbed. A lump was forming along his hairline over his left eye.  He tried yanking his feet, but the knots were too tight.  The chair creaked, but held him still.  

“I’m sorry.”  Clara rounded the chair and stood before him with an oil lamp in one hand.  Its yellow-orange light glowed through the glass and filled the otherwise unlit basement with soft, warm light.  “I had no choice, you see.  You were starting to think I did it.”

“If you wanted to convince me you’re innocent,” he tugged at his wrists again, still searching for a weakness, “this isn’t the way to do it.”

“I didn’t do it!”  She set her lamp on a small, spindly-legged table that was the only other furniture in the room.  “My family was murdered!  Why would I kill my family?  That would make me a terrible daughter.”  Her hands cupped the sides of his face and tilted his head upward.  “I would never.  I couldn’t have.  I was in the forest chasing the rappigs all night, right?  How could I have killed them if I wasn’t even here! Ha!” She giggled with a wide grin.  “So it can’t have been me, see?”

Yuri shook his head and pulled away from her grip.  “Oh, yeah?  Explain the footprints, then.  I guess you weren’t planning on it to snow last night when you released them to give yourself an alibi, but the footprints are pretty clear that no one else approached this house.”

The strength of her slap surprised him.  Her hand was cold and bony and left a sting radiating through his cheek.  “But it wasn’t me!  It wasn’t, I didn’t kill them, I didn’t.  The footprints don’t mean anything, because he doesn’t leave footprints when he walks so maybe other people don’t either!.”

“Who?”

“But, see, even you don’t believe me and you’re Yuri Lowell.  So knights would be silly and think I did it, too!  But you can help me.”  

The pounding in Yuri’s skull made it difficult to follow her rapid gushes of words.

“All you have to do is figure out who did kill my family, and then we can go to the Knights together and everything will be ok!”

Yuri sneered at her.  “Why should I help someone who knocked me out and tied me up?”

The second slap made his head spin and doubled the ache in his skull.  “I won’t tolerate disobedience.”  Her hand approached him again and Yuri instinctively flinched, but instead she gently brushed his hair away from the bump on his head, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to it.  “Don’t be scared.  I’ll take good care of you while you solve this.”

* * *

 

It took a long time for Clara to summarize everything Yuri needed to know to solve the case.  Every detail was sandwiched between explanations for why it proved she hadn’t done it, how she loved her family so much and would never, ever slaughter them like rappigs, and how Yuri had saved Halure and saved the world so obviously he could save her, too, right?  

By the time she’d gotten through it all, Yuri’s bump on the head and morphed into an all-encompassing headache that throbbed through his skull.  It made it difficult to concentrate, but he managed to strain the pertinent details about the case out of her mess of words.

What he knew was this: Garrick had been the first to die.  The killer entered the house through the back door and stabbed him in the neck and back while he ate breakfast.  Rosa was the second.   Most likely she’d witnessed the first murder, screamed, tried to run to the stairs to reach her son and then failed to defend herself when the killer came after her next.  The last was Jonas, who was nine years old and had come running downstairs when he heard his parents scream.  The killer had stabbed him at the foot of the stairs.

All three victims had more wounds than necessary to cause death.  Nothing from the house had been stolen, and they weren’t rich, anyway.  This suggested it had been a crime of passion, and the killer was either a deranged lunatic akin to Zagi or else had a personal reason for killing them.  Since there was no sign of anyone else approaching the house, if there was a murderous lunatic, it was apparently a ghost.

“So, what do you think?” Clara grinned in his face.  “You can figure it out, right?”

Yuri sighed; damn, his head really hurt.  “You don’t want to know what I think.”  It would take her a long time to find all the marbles she was missing.  

“But I do, I do.”  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face into the crook of his neck.  Her chest pressed against his while Yuri craned his neck away from her embrace with a scowl.  “I trust you, Yuri.  You’re the only one that can help me.  I just know it.”

Yuri was not an overly affectionate person, so her prolonged hug quickly made him squirm for an escape.  The rope around his wrists was tight and the more he pulled, the tighter it got.  

Pain blasted through his shin after she kicked him.  “You don’t even want to help me, do you?” She pulled back and now her fingers dug into his shoulders like claws.  

Yuri met her gaze.  “Not particularly.”

“You bastard,” she hissed.

Clara raised her hand and Yuri braced himself.

The assault probably lasted about five minutes, but it was hard to tell in the dark basement.  The last time her hand came to his face, it landed on his head, instead, and playfully ruffled his hair.  A new swelling under his eye would join the lump on his head, his shins stung from growing bruises, and his torso ached.  

“You’re going to be a good boy, right?”

Yuri spat blood.  “Go fuck yourself.”

Clara frowned at him and her hand reached for his face.  Yuri flinched, but instead she gently patted it.  “I don’t approve of that kind of language.”

He pressed his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.  “I aim to disappoint.”

Clara stepped away from him and he couldn’t help feeling relief at that.  “I have to go.  There’s a little bit of a mess upstairs I need to deal with.  You’ll have solved the murder when I come back, right?”

His eyes opened again.  She was holding the lamp again, smiling at him serenely, shadow stretching behind her to join the rest of the room’s darkness, but something was… not right.  It was like looking at a painting where the artist had made a mistake big enough that your brain registered the scene was slightly off, but too small to notice without intense scrutiny.  

Whatever it was, she moved the lamp, patted him on the head, and walked away.  The illusion disappeared and she returned upstairs.  When the door slammed shut, Yuri was left in darkness so thick he couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed or not.  

He tried once again to pull out of the ropes, but had no luck.  Sore and furious, he muttered, “What a bitch.”


	2. Mother

 

Yuri had to pee.  He wouldn’t have expected this at the outset, but it had become his most pressing concern.  Hours must have passed and that water he drank with lunch was ready to leave, but he was still tied to the rotten chair in the damn basement.  In fact, his position was even worse, because he was now on his side.  Struggling, twisting, and squirming had led the chair to tip over, which had sent his head spinning but made no difference to the tightness of the knots.  

The door at the top of the stairs opened and his heart skipped a beat. What did she want now?  Footsteps creaked on the old wooden steps and then pattered toward him.

“Yuri, dear!  How did you fall over?!”

“I was playing Dominos with myself.”

Clara tutted at him as she pulled the chair upright.  “Be more careful or you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that right.”

Clara giggled and patted his cheek.  “You’re so silly.  So, did you figure out who the killer is yet?”

“Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candlestick.”

She punched him so hard his head thumped against the back of the chair.  “You’re not taking this seriously!”

Yuri shook his head to try to dispel the stars before his eyes.  “Oh, well, excuse me for not being invested in helping the chick who kidnapped me.”

“Don’t say that!”  She gripped the sides of his face and pushed his head against the chair.  “I would never kidnap you.  You came here to help me, remember?  You’re happy to be with me.  Why would you lie about something like this?”

“Came willingly?  Terrible decision, but sure.  Stayed willingly?”  The chair creaked as he once again tried to pull his legs free.  “Don’t count on it.”

Clara shook her head.  “I’m not to blame for all this.”  She let out a nervous giggle.  “He said so, so it’s true.”

“He who?”  

She looked over her shoulder and Yuri followed her gaze into the shadows.  Who was she checking for?

Clara lowered her voice.  “He walks behind the trees. But shhh, don’t let him know we’re talking about him.  He doesn’t like it when I mention him to my family.  Although… I guess that’s not a problem anymore, ha.”

“You seem pretty nonchalant for someone who definitely didn’t murder her family.”

Her muscles stiffened and her grip on his face became painful.  “It’s very hurtful when you say things like that, Yuri.”

“Boo-hoo.  Untie me and maybe I’ll consider being polite.”

Her eyes locked on his, her grip tightened, and he thought she was going to try to snap his neck.  Then she broke into a smile, patted his head, and said, “Wait here.”  

When the door slammed shut again, Yuri shook his head and let out a breath.  Damn, he really needed to get out of here.  His skull pounded, his muscles ached, his mouth was dry, his bladder wanted to explode, and those sandwiches at lunch felt like so long ago.  What did she even expect him to do?  How could he solve a murder if she didn’t let him walk around to investigate the scene?  He’d sure gotten himself into a pickle this time.

Some time later - it was impossible to judge in the darkness and solitude - Clara returned and Yuri tensed.  She held a mug this time and wore a smile.  “I brought something for you.”

“I hope it’s dinner.” The only way he could tell how long he’d been down here was by how much his stomach was growling.  He’d had lunch around noon, so it must be seven or eight at night by now.  

“It’s a drink.”  She shoved the mug in his face.  “It will help.”

“No, untying me will help.”

She rubbed his shoulder affectionately.  “You’re so silly.  Drink up.”

It smelled like some kind of herbal tea.  Yuri wasn’t a fan of what he considered bitter leaf water, but between the chilliness of the basement and the dryness of his mouth, he caved and opened his mouth.  

The bitterness made his nose wrinkle and he had to force himself to swallow.  “Ugh, that’s disgusting.  What did you make-”

She shoved the mug back at his lips and tipped, forcing him to swallow or else spill all over his chest.  The acrid flavour made his skin crawl and Clara had to use her other hand to hold the back of his head to keep him from jerking away.  She kept pouring until the mug was empty and Yuri was glad the heat had burned his tongue and made it harder to taste.  

When she finally put the mug down, he coughed and spat.  “What was that?”

“Don’t be a baby.  It’s good for you.  I’ll be right back.”

“Good riddance,” he growled as she left.  Yuri leaned forward and tried to spit on the floor again to get the taste out of his mouth.  He squirmed in the chair, trying to squeeze his legs together to help with the ache between between them.  She’d let him go so he could piss, right?  Maybe that would be his chance to escape.  His fingers squeezed together to try to warm up; the basement was freezing.

His stomach twisted.  The sudden stab startled him and he closed his eyes as the knife dug deeper.  It felt like his intestines had risen up in revolt and were trying to strangle his stomach.  Cramps radiated through his stomach as rising nausea fought the concussion for domination of his head.  What the hell was in that tea?

Yuri twisted, trying to find a more comfortable position.  Minutes droned on as the pain heightened until finally Clara skipped down the stairs, humming a cheerful tune.  “How do you feel?”

His eyes watered and his chest heaved with deep, thick breaths.  His jaw ached, his heart throbbed against his ribs.  “What… did you… do to me?”

“Shhh, don’t worry, you’re going to be just fine.”  She plopped an old wooden bucket on his lap and then gently pulled him forward.  

The tea tasted even worse on the way out.  His stomach heaved and burned his throat.  Yuri coughed, spat, and gasped for breath between retches.  Whatever had been in that tea, his body was eager to expel it as quickly as possible.  It was a good thing he was vomiting, he tried to tell himself.  His stomach was expunging this before it could seriously poison him.  That didn’t make him feel any better.  

His stomach clenched again and he released, but to his deep frustration, something else released, too.  Fuck.  Even worse, he couldn’t stop the flash of appreciation for the warmth between his legs creating one small patch of reprieve from the chilly temperature.  

“Oh, dear.”  Clara stroked the back of his neck.  “Did you have an accident?”

Yuri wanted to tell her to fuck off, but his mouth was too busy throwing up to give him even that satisfaction.  Hair slipped past his ear, but Clara carefully pushed it back and pulled his hair away from his face.  “You’ll feel better soon,” she murmured, along with a slew of other sweet words.  She kept rubbing his back while whispering meaningless assurances .  

When Yuri’s stomach finally settled, he spent another minute spitting into the bucket and trying to get the remnants out of his mouth.    The smell made his stomach clench, but there was nothing left to hurl.

“Feel all better?”  She set the bucket aside and then produced a damp cloth.  “Let me clean your face.”  

Yuri sat still and breathed heavily as she dabbed at his mouth.  He complied when she put a handkerchief to his nose and told him to blow, and sullenly glared at her as she wiped his watering eyes.  “What…” he panted, “was the point of that?” His stomach was empty, but he still felt faint and tingly.  His heart beat too fast while a dull ache settled in his abdomen.  

She had another cloth, dry this time, which she patted between his legs.  

“Stop it,” Yuri muttered as she pressed on his groin to dry his pants.  

“I’ll clean you all up.  No need to be shy. ”

Humiliation burned on his cheeks.  Piss and vomit made the room reek.  What the hell was going on?  This morning he’d been having breakfast with Flynn.  Everything had fallen apart so fast.  

“Oh, you poor thing.  You look so miserable”  She cupped the side of his face with one bony hand.  “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you while you’re sick.”

“Not sick,” he seethed.  “You poisoned me.”

“What a silly thing.”  She kissed his forehead.  “Sleep tight!  Don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

Yuri untensed as she walked away and took a few more panting breaths.  When he’d gotten his energy back, he called up the stairs, “Yeah, and fuck you, too!”

The door slammed shut.  Yuri leaned back and let out a groan.  He wasn’t usually one to worry, but if ever there was a time to fret, this was it.  His mind went to Estelle, who by now was probably figuring Yuri hadn’t been able to make it through Halure after all.  Why hadn’t he made concrete plans with her?  Then she’d know by now that he was missing and could start searching immediately.  As it was, how long would it take anyone to notice he was gone?  He’d told Karol and Judith to expect him any time in the next few days, and how long after that before they realized he wasn’t merely held up on a ship with bad wind or stuck on a slow cart?  It could be more than a week before his friends even got worried, let alone started hunting for him.  And who had seen him leave town with Clara?  No one knew he was here.  No one knew he was missing.  No one knew just how badly he needed help.  

Yuri tried to sleep.  His eyes were heavy and his head throbbed, but every time he felt himself slipping away, his chin fell to his chest and jounced him awake.  His mouth still tasted like an awful mix of bitter tea and sour stomach acid and shivers kept interrupting his attempts to fall unconscious.  The only condition that was actually helpful for sleep was the utter darkness of the room.

At one point, when he was closer to the awake end of the limbo of half-sleep, he heard a dull scrape of snow nearby.  Footsteps, coupled with the sound of something heavy being dragged.  He didn’t think too much about it before he finally managed to fall asleep.  

* * *

 

One time when they were little, Flynn’s mom helped a butcher pack up all his belongings and move to a new house.  In payment, he gave her an entire chicken.  Yuri still remembered how wide his and Flynn’s eyes had been when she set that beauty on the table that night.  The skin golden and crispy, the meat soft and moist, and best of all, there was so much of it.  They went to bed that night so full their stomachs hurt, which was not a sensation they were used to.  

Yuri thought about that chicken now.  He thought about the first time Estelle invited him to a banquet at the castle and he only agree to go when she mentioned there would be an entire table of desserts, and then he spent the entire evening lurking by the buffet and trying to figure out if there was a difference between shrimp and prawns.  Every delicious food he’d ever eaten danced before his mind’s eye and his mouth would have watered had he any moisture to spare.

How many days had it been?  Two. Five.  Ten.  Fifty.  It was impossible to count.  Rationally, it couldn’t have been more than three, or maybe four.  That was the limit the human body could go without water, and nothing had passed his lips since that awful tea made its encore backing out.  The only plus side was that not drinking anything meant he had no new fuel to ruin his pants again.  

If he couldn’t have water, he’d take food, and if he couldn't have food, he’d take a soft mattress he could stretch out on and feel miserable in peace.  Cramps had long since set into his limbs and the mental urge to just move them already was almost worst than the physical aches.  Sometimes, in the patchy sleep he was able to snatch while sitting upright, he dreamed about making snow angels or doing jumping jacks.

Yuri leaned back in the chair - he didn’t have the strength to hold his head up on his own.  This sucked.  There were probably more eloquent ways to describe his situation, but his brain was too parched and exhausted to think of them.  Something skittered not far away, but he’d concluded those sounds were rats hours ago.  Days ago.

And then he heard a door.  His senses had had nothing to detect for so long that the distant thump and footsteps boomed through his mind.  A rescuer!  Please, oh please, let it be a rescuer.  The footsteps were lighter than a knight’s heavy armor, so maybe it was Estelle.  She was coming to save him and he could finally get out of this accursed basement.

The door opened and Estelle appeared at the top of the stairs.  “Yuri!  Oh, thank goodness I found you!”  She ran down the stairs, Repede barking at her side. Her face radiated relief as she dashed toward him.  “I was so worried about you.  Let’s get you home.”  She cut the rope and Yuri sprang to his feet, where he dragged Estelle into a crushing embrace, then lifted her up and spun her around.  They were going home, and he was going to eat a huge feast and take a long bath and then fall asleep in that wonderfully soft bed Estelle had in her guest bedroom.  

Except none of that happened.  

“I’m back!” Clara chirped and startled Yuri out of his daydream.  “Did you miss me?”  She was right in front of him now, leering down with a lamp in hand.  “So, how goes your detectiving?  Did you solve the case yet?  

Yuri had to look away from the lamp in her hand.  After being in the dark for so long, it was like looking at the sun.  Her voice made his skull throb.  

“I asked you a question!”  

The sun flashed before his eyes, nearly blinding him, and then heat scorched his cheekbone as the lamp smacked the side of his face.  Yuri grunted as his head spun in circles and the burn set into his face.  Her other hand gripped his hair and yanked his head back until it slammed against the chair.  

“Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you!”

Yuri knew he was sitting still with his head pulled back and forced upward, but it seemed like it was swaying in circles with the light from her lamp leaving a trail as it swayed around.  Dizziness half-convinced him he was lying down.  

She hit him again.  He couldn’t pinpoint where; it was impressive enough he was still conscious.  Blows rained down, covering his body in new bruises.  He was too exhausted to even try to avoid them, let alone fight back.  

After five minutes - or five hours? - five years? - he slowly registered that new hurts weren’t being added to the ones he already grappled with.  “Well?” Clara demanded, shining that light right in his face and forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut.  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

When Yuri panted, the air rattled through his dry throat.  “Water…” he croaked.  “Need… water.”   He rubbed his leathery tongue over his cracked lips.  

“Is that all you have to say?”  Her slap sent daggers through the burn on his cheek.  “You were supposed to be working out the case!”

“Please….”  Maybe if he was really lucky, the roof would cave in and the whole house would come toppling down, bringing snow into the basement.  Then maybe some of it would fall on his face and melt and he could get a few droplets of cold water to moisten his mouth.  

She kicked his shin.  “I’m disappointed in you.”

And then she was gone, her exit unregistered by his addled brain.  For a few seconds - or maybe minutes - Yuri relished her absence. Hours later, or probably about ten minutes, he found himself missing her.  Rather, he missed her light, he missed the presence of another living thing besides rats.  

The door swung open.  “I’m back!”

His head whipped up; hadn’t she left only a minute ago (or had it been an hour ago?)? This time she carried a steaming bowl in one hand.  Clara brought it toward him with a smile as she set the lamp on the table.  “You must be hungry, so I brought you some soup.”

Her anger at him from earlier seemed to have been forgotten, but with a tremor in his heart, Yuri had to wonder if it had happened at all.  She had been down here to shout at him, right?  He was certain he hurt more now than he had before he first heard the door, but… he wasn’t entirely sure.  

No time to worry about it now.  His slumbering stomach awoke from hibernation with a growl as the savoury scent hit his nose.  Clara thrust the bowl right to his lips, which parted automatically at the promise of moisture.  

He was so thankful for liquid that an eternity of gratefulness stretched before him, filled with oceans and rivers and babbling springs of clear, cool water.  That eternity condensed into a second, and then flipped to him gasping, choking on fire, and letting scalding broth dribble from his mouth and burn his chin.  His sudden jerk disrupted Clara’s hand, and she spilled more soup onto his chest.  Yuri hissed and twitched as it burned his skin.  

“Whoops.  A bit warm?”

Yuri gasped to bring cold hair to his scorched mouth.  His mouth had nearly numbed from how dry it was, but now a fiery sensitivity filled it.  A bit warm?  A bit warm?  He suspected she’d taken it from boiling, poured it into a bowl, and brought it straight down.  

“Have another sip.”

He turned his head away.  

“Now, now, don’t be so childish.”

“Cool it, first.”  Better yet, untie him and let him make his own damn meal.  

“How about just the meat, at least?  I bet you’re feeling a little peckish.”

He would have glared if he had the energy to focus on the expression.  ‘Peckish’, sure, and an ocean was bit of water.  He opened his mouth and let her spoon a cube of meat into his mouth.  It seemed to be pork, or maybe rappig, but he couldn’t taste too well through the scorch on his tongue.  It just became worse when the hot food pressed against his already sore mouth, but he was too hungry to complain.  

There was little dignity in allowing himself to be spoon-fed, obediently opening his mouth every time the spoon approached his lips.  However, there was even less dignity in dying of starvation in an awful basement, so he put his pride aside and concentrated on survival.  

Clara babbled as she fed him.  “I hope you didn’t miss me too terribly while I was out.  I had to visit him in the forest and tell him what was happening.  I hadn’t told him about my family yet, you see, and I knew he’d want to know about you, too.  He didn’t seem too surprised, actually.  I wonder if he knows something about who did it?  Maybe you should talk to him.  Don’t be shy; he’s nowhere near as scary as he looks.”

Yuri didn’t reply while she spoke.  He was too busy eating as quickly as he could so maybe some of this pork and carrots would fill the pit in his stomach.  He did think about it as much as he could, though.  She seemed to be talking about that mysterious ‘him’ who ‘walked behind the trees’.  There couldn’t really be a man living out in the woods, could there?  He recalled Estelle’s fears of a curse in the Quoi woods and wondered if there was any merit to that.  This thought just made him think about Estelle, and his heart panged to see her again.  He longed to see anyone who wasn’t Clara, actually.  Especially if that someone came with a huge jug of water, a platter of food, and a warm bed.  

“It’s so nice having someone to talk to.”  She smiled warmly and set the bowl on the table.  “He doesn’t talk much.  I think he’s very sad about something that happened a long time ago.  I asked him about our rappigs, but I’m afraid he couldn’t help me find them.  I do hope the poor little things don’t get hurt out in the woods.  At least I know that if someone else finds them, they’ll bring them home.  We branded them with my family’s monogram just in case, you see.  Well, I did.  They were always my responsibility.  My father said it was right that I should care for the rappigs, since we’re so similar.”

There was a cup on the table next to the bowl.  Yuri hadn’t even noticed her bring it down.  Did it have water in it?  Maybe there was water in it and he would get some!  Cool, clear water running over his tongue and down his throat….

“Are you even listening to me?”

Eating had only made him more thirsty.  “Water….  Please.”

“You’re so ungrateful!” She shoved him and the world spun.  “I’ll be right back.”

She was gone for a year.  Maybe it was only a few seconds.  The important thing was that she had a mug in hand that Yuri stared at like Repede did when he came home with a steak.  “Here, drink this.”  

Apparently she’d been gone long enough to make tea (unless it was the next day already?).  Yuri caught one whiff of the foul tea and recoiled.  He wanted to go back to the days of wandering the Sands of Kogorh, because at least he’d been less thirsty, but there was no way he was drinking that crap.  As much as he wanted to, he was still able to think enough to know that vomiting was only going to dehydrate him further.  

“I promise it’s not hot.”

Yuri pressed his lips together and turned his head as she shoved it in his face.  Clara grabbed his chin and jerked his face back to her.  “You’re just being stubborn.”  

Yeah, stubborn about not drinking something that could kill him.  He clenched his jaw as she dug her fingers into the sides of his mouth, but he didn’t have the strength now to overpower her.  With an ache through his jaw, his mouth was forced open and the mug pushed to his lips.  Warm tea flowed into his mouth, so he closed the back of his mouth.  Clara pulled back and Yuri spat a mouthful onto her dress.  

She gasped and looked at herself in shock.  “What - how dare you?!” Her smack sent his head jerking to the side.  “I made that for you!”

Yuri hung his head and mumbled, “Just give me water.”

“You’re so ungrateful!” She slapped right across the burn on his cheek, and it didn’t end with that.

There was nothing Yuri could do to protect himself.  Even if his limbs weren’t restrained, he was too weak to fight off even a waif of a woman like Clara.  All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and endure.  

It kept hurting long after she’d stopped.  He didn’t even notice her leave, but suddenly she gripped his hair and yanked his head back.  “Here!  Have the stupid water you keep whining about!”

The first splash dripped down his chin and he hastily opened his mouth to not miss any more drops.  It was lukewarm and tasted of copper pipes, but it was the best tasting water Yuri had ever had.  He gulped it down and imagined it soaking into him like water to a wilting plant.  It was a full glass but he still wanted more when he finished.  

“There.”  She slammed the glass on the table.  “Now, what do we say when people do nice things for us?”

Rejuvenated by water, Yuri took a deep breath, raised his throbbing head, and spat, “Fuck yourself on a cactus.”

The scandalized anger on her face had been worth the punch to his jaw, even if his teeth did hurt.  Yuri hadn’t known that teeth even had pain receptors, but he guessed all the rest of his body’s were occupied already, so they dragged out some of their own.  He chuckled and swallowed some of the blood.  

“Filthy-mouthed brat!”  Her bony hand locked around his throat, shoving his head back.  Her voice rose to screech that hurt his ears.  “You’ll pay for this!  You’ll pay for letting me down!  You’ll pay for being such a disappointment!”

Yuri coughed and wheezed but thankfully her one hand wasn’t strong enough to completely close off his throat.  His eyes watered and a grim part of his brain thought it was appropriate he was starving for air, having grown bored of starving for food.  At first his eyes met hers, but they quickly darted away.  Staring into those icy bastions of madness sent shudders down his spine.  

He looked away and tried to focus on anything but her livid face.  His vision blurred but there wasn’t much to see anyway.  A table to his left, a lamp, an island of light in this dark basement, and Clara right in front of him with her shadow stretched straight back.

And then it clicked.  Maybe it was the haziness of fading consciousness wiping away any other distractions, but the error jumped out at him now.  Clara’s shadow was directly behind her… but the only light in the room was to Yuri’s left.  Her shadow ought to be falling to the right.  He blinked and tried to correct his vision, and he was certain that there was more than just that wrong with the shadow.  The edges were too straight, the colour too uniformly black.

His eyes were still on it when Clara finally pulled her arm back.  Yuri’s gasp covered the throb in his chest and he wondered if it was the lack of oxygen playing tricks on him, because he could have sworn the shadow’s arm moved a split second after Clara’s did - like it was trying to keep up.  

“Pay attention to me!” Spittle hit his face.  

Yuri pulled his eyes from her shadow, but the back of his brain was still busy trying to work out what was happening.  More annoyed than intimidated, he drawled, “What do you want now?”

She snatched the lamp off the table and the shadows around the chair shifted while Clara’s remained motionless.  “Next time I come down here, I hope you behave decently.”  She walked away and her shadow scurried to keep up.

Yuri called after her as she left.  “Yeah, and screw you, too.”  She marched up the stairs, apparently ignoring him.  “You know you’re crazy, right?!  You’re a crazy fucking bitch.  It’s lucky you’re actually decent at tying knots, or I’d currently be kicking your ass into next week!”

Clara had past out of his range of view as she returned to the stairs, but when Yuri looked up at her now, standing at the top, she was disturbingly normal.  “Sit down here and think about what you’ve done!”  Her shadow hit the wall, soft and fuzzy from the oil lamp.  Completely natural.  

When the door shut and darkness returned, Yuri thought about that. There wasn’t much else to think about down here besides how sore he was.  If there had been something hiding in her shadow, and then at the top of the stairs it was apparently gone… that meant she’d left it down here with him.  

That was ridiculous.  There probably hadn’t been anything at all, because who could trust a dehydrated brain that had been beaten around a skull?  

But if there had been something lurking in her shadow… it certainly had plenty of places to hide in this darkness.  Yuri had to close his eyes because staring ahead with nothing for them to land on made his head hurt more than it already did.  

He listened to his heart throb and his blood rush past his ears.  He listened to the distant sound of wind through trees and imagined how nice it would be to see the world outside this basement.  He listened to the skittering and rustling of rats, and wondered if that shuffling behind him was small enough to come from a rodent.  


	3. Fingers

There was only one upside to Clara being present more often, and that was food and water. Yuri wasn't sure how often she fed him, only that he was always ravenous by the time food came. It was always the same meal, too: hot broth with some carrots and lumps of pork. At least she'd learned to cool it off before shoving it in his face, and by the time his tongue healed enough to taste properly, he actually thought it tasted pretty good.

There were a lot of downsides. Every time the door opened, his heart skipped a beat and he wondered if she was here to use him as a punching bag or if all he had to worry about was personal space invasion. He almost preferred the beatings, because at least he knew where he stood with an enemy trying to hurt him. Yuri had never had a mother before, but from observation he was pretty sure Clara's behaviour the other times was trying to mimic that. Flynn had always been comforted when his mother was affectionate with him, but every gentle touch from Clara made Yuri's skin crawl.

Images swam before his eyes. With nothing to look at, his eyes got bored and started making things up. At first it had just been dancing lights or colourful spots, but his brain was really revving up its imagination now and showing him moving figures or unrecognizable faces emerging from the shadows before fading away.

It was nothing to freak out about, Yuri reminded himself as he stared dully at a human figure pacing in front of him. He'd heard of this before - hallucinations were just a standard symptom after going without light or sleep for so long. It didn't mean he was losing his mind.

The human figure was only a silhouette, a void of blackness against the rest of the darkness. He could pick out it's general shape, but if he looked too closely at any details, they blurred and disappeared. At least it gave him something to look at, even if it was nothing but a vaguely human shape walking around. More interesting than the flashing lights that had hurt his eyes even if they weren't real.

Damn, he just wanted to sleep. A good long sleep would clear his head and get these stupid visions taken care of. Yuri used to make fun of Flynn for transmogrifying into a log when he fell asleep, but now he envied Flynn's ability to get shuteye almost anywhere. Every time Yuri's head drooped, the jolt of his chin falling to his chest woke him up. With his legs pulled under the chair and his arms awkwardly lashed behind it, he had no chance to try to position himself so gravity held his head back.

Even worse, every time he actually got close to sleeping, Clara burst into the room and marched down the stairs to keep him up. It was like she was doing it on purpose. Did she know when he was falling asleep? That was the only explanation. Clara found a way to watch him at all hours of the day - she was watching him  _right now_. There was no peace - she had eyes in the walls, eyes in the shadows, always watching, always ready to pounce, he would never escape -

Stop. That was crazy. Clara was just a normal (ok, not  _normal_ , but physically unremarkable) woman who did not have omniscience. If he started thinking she could watch him with psychic powers, he really would lose his mind.

But what if-!

Yuri focused on his hallucinations to keep himself sane.

Shapes wandered before his eyes. A vibrant red blob swam through space - it reminded him of an apple gel. His hands twitched with the desire to reach for it. What he really wanted was a healing arte from Estelle, but anything that could dim his headache or dozens of bruises would do.

The human shape he'd been watching faded away. It was replaced by the sound of footsteps. Funny - he hadn't had auditory hallucinations yet. Footsteps cracked on branches on dry leaves. Undergrowth rustled below the dragging feet which were coming closer and closer.

Ha… what a weird hallucination. Even his heart was beating a little faster.

Leaves rustled as the wind sighed through the trees. Those footsteps were getting really close now and his eyes ached from the effort of trying to find their source in the shadows. 'Shadows' was an inaccurate description, though, because a shadow could only exist with a source of light to contrast it. This was capital-D Darkness, the sort where creatures that evolved in it wouldn't bother developing eyes at all because vision would have no meaning for them.

And now something had come out of that darkness. It was only a hallucination, Yuri reminded himself as it stood in front of him. What did it want? It was just standing there, breathing heavily,  _not existing because fuck, Yuri, you're not insane._

Smokey fingers (that weren't actually there because he was imagining this) brushed hair away from his face. They left streaks of something thick and sticky on his cheek.

A question started to form in his mouth, but Yuri stopped himself. Talking to the hallucinations was not going to help him stay sane. It was bad enough that he could feel a frigid breeze on the back of his neck and hear the cawing of birds overhead.

The thing that wasn't standing in front of him did not drag its feet through the snow around him, so that it was now not right behind him. If he really accepted the insanity, he'd think that a hand was hovering over his shoulder, close enough to make his skin tingle without actual pressure.

The pain shooting through his body at that moment was a coincidence. Every bruise ached, his head tried to rip itself in half to relieve pressure, and his empty stomach tied into a knot. Every pained throb brought new life to a seed of hatred that was already turning into a nest of thorns in his heart. There was only one person to blame for his misery.

The rope moved on its own to slide free. For the first time in seemingly years, Yuri was able to move his arms. His joints creaked from disuse as he stretched his arms with a flutter of exhilaration. He leapt to his feet and then grabbed the chair to stabilize himself when his head spun.

"Thank you," he wheezed to the darkness. Whatever presence had been here was gone, but the hatred it had stirred in him remained. Every stumbling step toward the stairs made him hurt more, and ever stab of pain filled him with more hatred.  _She_  had done this to him. He clutched the railing to help him stagger up the stairs until he reached the top and shoved the door open.

He stood in the kitchen, squinting against the bright light. Fresh air reached him through a window and he took a long, deep breath. It was cold, clear, and smelled of snow and pine. In a daze, he dragged himself to the door and stepped outside, relishing the cold air stinging his cheeks. Fresh air. Sunlight. Free movement. He was  _out_. And he was never, never, never going back down there.

Footsteps crunched around the side of the building and Yuri's adrenaline spiked. He turned just in time to see Clara rounding the house. She stopped and stared, mouth open in a small gasp.

Yuri didn't even stop to think before launching toward her. She wasn't going to get the upper hand in this confrontation - he was going to grind her face into the snow before she could even think about locking him up in that hell again. He shouted and tackled her to the ground. Clara landed hard, winded, and cried out as his fist crunched into her face.

"Serves you right!" Yuri screamed, grabbed her shoulder, and slammed her into the ground again. See how  _she_  liked someone beating the crap out of her. All the rage that had been building up since he awoke down there flowed from his fists to her bloody face. He was going to make her pay for what she'd done to him. He was going to  _kill_  her. Smash her face until her skull broke. Kill her, kill her, make her suffer -

* * *

Frigid water splashed his face and Yuri's eyes shot open. Automatically, his tongue searched for any droplets still on his face because water was a treasured commodity.

"Wake up, you ungrateful bastard!"

No. No, no, no, no, he couldn't still be here! Yuri squirmed and found his bindings just as unforgiving as before. Fuck,  _no_. He'd tasted freedom - he couldn't be back  _here_  again. Anywhere but here.

"You're not even  _trying_  to solve this murder, are you?"

When Yuri saw her face, his fury was so powerful it blurred his vision and made his whole body throb with hatred. "Why should I help you?" That couldn't have just been a dream. He was certain he'd been awake when he started hallucinating. "If you were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on you to put it out."

He wasn't surprised that she hit him, but he was angry. " _You_  helped Flynn with the Adephagos? You're useless. You haven't accomplished anything. You're just a vulgar freeloader taking advantage of my hospitality."

"Freeloader!?" He'd learned ages ago that he couldn't force his way out of the ropes, but his rage wasn't rational and the chair wobbled as he thrashed. "You think I  _want_  to be here?! I'd rather skinny-dip in Zopheir than spend one more minute in your disgusting basement. And don't make me laugh about 'hospitality'. Where did you learn hospitality from, an eggbear? Fuck you and fuck your family and fuck your damn murder mystery. I know you did it, you know you did it, so let's get this over with and either release me or kill me because I'm sick and tired of your demented game."

Clara gaped at him, scandalized. She smacked him solidly across the face and then marched upstairs. She took the light with her, so Yuri looked around in the darkness, wondering if the hallucinations would start again right away or if he needed to let his eyes atrophy first.

And if he did hallucinate again, would he see…  _that_? It must have been part of his dream. Nothing but a weird nightmare that bled into false hope. The whole part with thinking he'd gotten out counted as a nightmare in retrospect, because getting a taste of freedom in a hyper-realistic dream made it all the more painful to find himself down here again. For the thousandth time, he tried to worm his wrists out of the rope. By now, they stung with every movement or when cool air hit the raw flesh.

The door swung open and Clara returned. She wore a wide grin as she trounced down the stairs and as she came closer, Yuri spotted two things in her hand: a bar of soap, and a pair of pliers. These she set on the table next to her lamp and then ran her hand over Yuri's head and pet his hair.

"Now, I'm not just mad at you, Yuri, dear. I'm disappointed in you."

" _Oh_ , well yippee for me." He jerked his head away from her touch. "Now get your damn hand off me."

"See?" She cupped his chin and pulled his face up. "This is what I mean. Your mouth is very dirty and inappropriate."

"Thanks, I try. Being appropriate is kinda Flynn's thing."

Clara grabbed the bar of soap and shoved it into Yuri's mouth. The bitterness filled his mouth in an instant and she shoved it so far back it came close to kicking off his gag reflex. Before he could spit it out, she whacked his lower jaw and ground his teeth into the thick white bar. She shoved his head back and soapy saliva ran down his throat. Yuri sputtered and tried to cough it out, but it was jammed too far in and with his head tilted back, gravity worked against him.

"Keep that in your mouth. It needs a good wash after all the foul things you've said."

Yuri's nose wrinkled as he ran his tongue along the bottom of the bar and tried to pry it loose. It was so bitter it stung and filled every corner of his mouth with a thick, acrid flavour. He stopped when she picked up the pliers and watched them carefully.

"And I know you've been planning some very naughty things." She waved the pliers before his face.

There were a few people Yuri could trust to wield pointy metal instruments close to his face, and Clara was not among them. She was probably on a list with Zagi for people he'd trust the  _least_. He eyed the pliers and swallowed his nervousness, which was a horrible decision because his spit made him want to throw up.

"He told me all about it. He said you want to leave and even planned to attack me. Is that true? Hmm?"

Yuri's eyes darted from the pliers to her face. Was she talking about…?

"How dare you?! After all I've done for you, this is what you plan? He said I ought to kill you, did you know that?!" Her shadow flared and darkened behind her, despite the lamp sitting still to her right. "You're  _lucky_  I love you, but that just makes me more angry about you betraying me like this!"

How did she know? She couldn't. He was straying into crazy thinking again. But  _how did she know_? She knew he'd dreamed about escaping and assaulting her;  _how_? Was there anything she didn't know? Could she read his thoughts right now? Even if he managed to get out of here, she'd just follow him forever and he'd never be free of her and -

 _No, dammit, Yuri, pull yourself together_. Clara wasn't psychic - she was paranoid and insane, it was probably just a coincidence she'd concluded Yuri wanted to kill her. In fact, it was probably the rational thought she had left that told her that. This didn't mean she could read his thoughts or that the freaky being that walked out of the forest wasn't just a dream he didn't recall falling asleep for.

"I convinced him you should only be punished, so you ought to thank me he suggested this rather than bashing your head in!" She rounded the chair and Yuri's head whipped around, trying to track her. Clara gripped his left index finger and pulled it straight. He struggled to bend his fingers away from her, be he didn't have the leverage, strength, or wiggle room to escape.

The soap was slick with his saliva now, spilling over his lips and onto his chin. He had just about worked his teeth out of it and could possibly spit it out when he felt the teeth of the pliers bite the tip of his nail. Everything stopped.

She wouldn't. Would she?

Discomfort rose in his nail bed.

Fuck. Fuck,  _she would_.

Yuri leaned forward as much as he could, coughed, and spat the bar of soap to the floor. "Don't you fucking dare!"

"Did I tell you you could spit that out?!" Clara yanked.

Yuri roared. Fire shot through his hand. His heart pounded rapidly, each throb bringing fresh pain to his fingertip. A thousand curse words bubbled to the forefront of his mind but all that made it out was incoherent gasping and choking.

Clara shoved the soap back in his mouth and this time he was too distracted by his finger to even fight it. "I don't want to hear any more foul language from you!"

Clara grabbed his middle finger. Yuri groaned and tried to pull away, but every movement of his hand made his index finger burn a little hotter. The pliers bit the nail and Yuri's whole body tensed. He didn't bother spitting the soap out because this time he was grateful to have something to gnash his teeth into.

She went slower this time. Maybe she thought she was being more delicate or gentle. Instead, all it meant was that he could feel the nail drag itself out of the bed, leaving hot agony behind. The back dug into his cuticle and blood dripped down his finger. His teeth ground into the soap as tears welled up in the corner of his eyes. Every heaving breath through his nose made his bruised torso hurt.

He didn't try to pull his hand away when she grabbed his ring finger. There was no point in prolonging the inevitable. It started with a sting that turned to a stab and Yuri squeezed his eyes shut. It was hard to picture anything but the mess going on behind his back, but he forced happier images before his eyes, like punching Clara in the face.

When the final rip came, Yuri couldn't smother a whimper in time. He chomped down so hard the soap snapped in two. The front half tumbled to his lap and his first thought was a panicked,  _crap, she's going to punish me even more for that_. That thought infuriated him, though, because the last thing he wanted was to let himself actually be  _afraid_  of Clara. And he wasn't, not at all, even though she could read his thoughts and follow him anywhere and controlled every facet of his life.

"Shhh…." Clara rubbed his shoulder and then picked up a damp cloth and a roll of bandages. "That hurt me more than it hurt you."

There was still a lump of soap in his mouth, wedged behind his teeth, which was good because it kept him from saying something that would probably earn him another missing fingernail.

Clara washed his fingers. The rough cloth scraped over his raw fingertips and Yuri's lips squeezed together like a vice to keep from making another noise. Then she methodically wrapped bandages around them, which slowed the bleeding but did nothing to stop his heart from beating knives into his hand. He wanted to pull it into his lap and at least put pressure on his fingers, but they were still stuck behind his back.

"There, all done." She returned to his front and then eased her fingers into his mouth to pull out the rest of the soap. "I hope you've learned your lesson."

Yuri was too busy coughing and trying to refresh his mouth with cold air to answer.

She pushed his shoulders back and then tucked his hair behind his ear. "Now, now, you can't complain. You made me do this, after all." Clara rubbed his shoulders and kissed his forehead. "I could bring you some nice tea to feel better."

"No," he wheezed. To keep her amiable, he added, "Thank you. I'm fine."

"See?" She ruffled his hair. "I knew you could be well-behaved."

She left him, which gave him nothing to focus on but the ache in his hand. Yuri sat in the darkness, cold and wet, and fantasized about escaping and beating her to a pulp. Imagining delivering that level of pain to her was the only thing that made him feel better about his hand. He forced himself to stop, though. He didn't want her to know he was thinking about hurting her, or she'd rip off even more fingernails. Besides, Yuri didn't want to think he was someone who enjoyed delivering pain. He wasn't afraid to kill someone if the job needed to be done, but it wasn't like he took pleasure in it and if someone needed to die, he never wanted to drag it out. Smashing Clara's face into the ground over and over was cathartic to think about, but he would never let himself do that in real life. There had to be some lines you wouldn't cross.

It was pathetic, really, how much Yuri looked forward to meals. They were the highlight of his day, or maybe his night - he really wasn't sure. Sometimes she fed him with smiles and gentle touches and sometimes uncomfortably hot soup was shoved into his mouth with a glare and a whack, but he was always starving when food came.

There was a downside to actually getting food and water. The basement reeked, but Clara never seemed to notice or care when she came down. She cleaned him up as well as she could without letting him leave the chair, but Yuri wished she didn't. Having her tug down his pants and clean him up was one of the most humiliating experiences of his life and he'd rather sit in his own filth than let her touch him ever again.

It was his 500th day of being down here. No, that was wrong. He knew it couldn't have been that long because he trusted his friends to find him before it got to that point. They must know he was missing by now, right? If it had been a month since he was dragged down here? Unless it hadn't been a month. Shit, what if it had only been a couple days? He refused to believe he'd be this disoriented after only a couple days. It had to be at least a month. Six months. A lifetime.

Something brushed his foot. Yuri kicked as much as he could, rocked the chair, and shouted, "Hey!" Damn rats. They were attracted to the blood that had dried on his fingers and in a puddle beneath them. Well, he sure as hell wasn't going to let himself be a snack for stupid rodents. "Don't you have cheese to go eat or something?"

The little bastards were getting braver. Winter was coming on strong, making it harder for them to find food. Yuri flailed at them whenever they came too close, but rats weren't stupid and had learned by now that his range of motion was limited. The scary giant wasn't so scary when he couldn't actually kick them, and Yuri knew from experience that hunger could make you bolder about sneaking a bite to eat.

More time passed. It could have been an hour or a week for all he knew. How long was she going to keep him down here? It was obvious by now that she wasn't going to change her mind and just let him go. His only chances were escape or rescue. He didn't like hinging his bets on others, but he'd tried escaping on his own dozens of times. What was he supposed to do? There was no way out. He was stuck. He would never ever get out and he'd spend the rest of his life rotting in this chair and -

Yuri squeezed his eyes shut to try to stop that train of thought. Closing his eyes didn't change his view, but he was otherwise immobile so the sting of clamping them together was something, at least. He couldn't let himself break down and lose hope. Clara said she'd let him go if he solved the murder, right? That was impossible, because she was the one who had done it even if she refused to admit it, but maybe he could come up with a solution she would believe. Yuri stared into the dark, searching for inspiration. All he saw was rain. Yuri sighed and leaned back as specks of light streaked past his vision. Why couldn't he at least have interesting hallucinations, like sexy naked people or a cool sword fight?

Ok, come on, think of a solution. It had to be airtight and fit Clara's idea of what had happened. Damn, he wished Estelle was here to help him come up with the story. There had been a… a roaming lunatic. He'd been wandering in the Quoi Woods.

Yuri pictured his imaginary murderer: a psycho with a knife and a deranged grin, wandering through the forest because…. because he was running away from knights, yeah. They'd tried to arrest him in Zaphias and he fled. He got all turned around in the woods, though, and roamed for days. Winter was coming on, he was starving and lost - that's what made him insane! Yeah, ok, he was just an ordinary petty thief before that but days of fear and hunger and desperation drove him mad.

With nothing else to look at, Yuri conjured the woods before his eyes. Shadows loomed between the trees, the man stumbled through fresh snow while looking around desperately for any sign of the path, while a prolonged scraping in the distance spurred him faster despite his weariness. It was the sound of something hard and flat being dragged slowly across rough wood and it resonated through the trees.  _Skrrrrrr…._

Yuri tried to slam the brakes on his imagination. He closed his eyes and shook his head, clearing the trees from his vision, but he heard that protracted  _skrrrrrrrrr_ once more. He twisted his head around, trying to pinpoint its source, but it seemed to come from all around him.

It was the rats. They were probably clawing at the walls… in long, steady strokes. Yeah, Yuri, that made total sense.

The trees rustled in the wind. In the distance, an animal skittered across the underbrush. A rat. It had to be a rat. The wind whistled again, and this time it contained a voice layered through the gust. It was low, raspy, and stretched so thin the wind bled through it and almost made it incomprehensible. Almost.

" _I don't want to die…._ "

That… that was the rats, too.

_SKRRR_

Yuri jumped - it was right by his ear! His head shot around but of course he saw nothing. He wouldn't have been able to see his hand in front of his face. The rope around his chest strained as he took deep gulps of air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his left side tingled - something was standing there, right next to him, but it was too dark to see.

_It's just another weird hallucination._

That long scratching came again, making it harder and harder to convince himself it was just a rat. Boy, what a wild imagination he had… ha….

Something nudged his thigh and Yuri jolted. Tiny hands dug into his pant. Yuri's hammering heart calmed down enough to realize it was a rat, but that was hardly comforting. "Get off me!" He'd been too distracted by the - the thing standing beside him that he hadn't noticed this little bastard creeping up and scaling the chair. The rat was determined, though, and he couldn't shake his leg enough to dislodge its claws.

_Skrrrr…._

"What is that?!"  _Stay mad, Yuri._  You couldn't be afraid and angry at the same time. The rat was scaling his chest now. Yuri squirmed as it tickled its way up to his shoulder. "Get off… get the hell off me!" Damn, why did his voice crack like that? He was not scared of rats! He was just angry because he hated looking so pathetic while someone was watching him.

Except no one was watching him because that was crazy and he was still perfectly sane, thank you very much. Even though he felt those eyes piercing into him from so close it made his skin tingle.

The rat's claws pricked his skin through his shirt sleeve.

"Don't just stand there," Yuri snarled into the darkness. "Get this thing off me."

The wind quieted enough that he could hear his own slow, rattling breaths. Only, he could feel his chest pushing against the rope in a quick rhythm as increasingly panicked breaths shot through his nose. The rat clung to the bindings around his wrists and whiskers tickled the back of his hand. Then he felt what he'd been dreading: tiny teeth clamped around his bloody index finger. Yuri grunted and clamped his teeth together to suppress a shout.

Something rustled on his right thigh and Yuri writhed as he felt a second rat scaling him. The bastards were going to eat him alive and all he could do was sit here and listen to wind rustle in a forest that didn't exist.

This was so stupid. Was  _this_  how Yuri Lowell was going to go out? Tied to a chair and chewed on by rats? The second rat was on his shoulder now, and then he felt tiny nails dig into the side of his neck and teeth bite his ear. Yuri twisted and strained to pull his head away and then choked on a yelp as another bite drove spikes into his damaged fingers.

_Skrrrrrr…_

"Help me," Yuri hissed into the shadows. There was something - someone - there, scraping fingernails into wood and heaving for breath. They didn't sound like they were doing well, but if their arms were free, they were definitely better off than him.

The rat nibbled his fingers and tears rose in the corners of his eyes. The one on his shoulder was trying to get another taste of his ear while Yuri twisted his head around to avoid it. Weight hung from his pant leg as a third rat began its ascent.

"Please." He could  _feel_  the presence of another person in the room. There was someone here, and they might be his only chance. "I can't-" his middle finger was clamped between a rat's teeth and he squeezed his lips together so his shout turned into a soft whine. The one on his shoulder gave up on reaching his ear and sharp teeth dug into the side of his neck. The third one was on his knee now and he just knew more were on their way. How much longer would it be before he was engulfed in them? How many bites would it take until he bled out? "I don't want to die like this."

Wind roared. Darkness found new shades of black and then air rushed across his face and fluttered his hair. It brought a scent of pine entwined with something rotten that made him gag. The scrape, louder than ever, deafened him in both ears and his headache flared. It tried to rip his skull in two, which at least distracted him from the pain in his fingers. Everything became too loud, too cold, too dark, and too much. His chest tingled as if a hand was hovering just too far away to not feel it, and then his headache exploded and took him mercifully into unconsciousness.


	4. Meat

Yuri woke up. How long had he been asleep? Not long enough, but then, he could sleep for a month and it wouldn't be long enough. His stomach ached for food, but luckily the thing that had woken him up was Clara arriving with breakfast. Or maybe it was dinner.

He was glad to be awake, though, after that screwed up dream with the rats. It had been just as freaky as the time he thought he'd escaped, only without the satisfaction of punching Clara in the face. The light Clara brought proved there was nothing hiding in the corners of the room, even if it did give him trepidation with how her shadow didn't quite line up properly.

"Hello, Yuri, dear. Did you have a nice nap?"

He dragged his head up, feeling the muscles creak after sleeping with his head slumped forward. Getting a few seconds of sleep had just given him a taste of what rest felt like and made him crave it even more.

"I brought you your favourite." She held up a spoonful of broth and pork. "Open up."

He barely had the strength to open his mouth wide enough for the chunk of meat. His teeth delicately nibbled the food because his face was so bruised and swollen that vigorous chewing was painful. It gave him time to savour the taste, which was one of the only pleasant things he'd experienced in ages. All things considered, at least Clara was a decent cook.

The meal ended too soon. His eyes fell longingly on the bowl that still had a few dregs he could lick up. Clara stroked his head, which couldn't be pleasant for her considering his scalp itched with the need to wash his hair. "Was that tasty?"

When Yuri didn't answer, her soft touch turned into a painful grip tugging at his roots. She yanked his head back and glared at him, her face inches from his own. "I asked you a question, Yuri."

Yuri hated to notice the flicker of fear in his heart. "Y-yeah." He let out a pained breath. "Really good."

Clara stood beside him and twirled her fingers through his hair. "Was that tasty?"

Yuri blinked a few times. Hadn't she just…? "W-what?"

She tilted her head and smiled. "Didn't you hear me? I asked if it was tasty."

"But you…" Yuri closed his eyes and then muttered, "... it was great." Imagination was a funny thing. "I was… thinking." The beginning of his dream where he came up with a murderer came back to him. Actually, he really had no idea where his thoughts ended and his dream began, but it didn't matter in this case. "'Bout the case."

"Oh?" She lowered her hand to his shoulder and leaned forward. "What did you figure out?"

"It was a man…." He could explain this better if she'd just give him some water to wash down that meal. "He was a criminal from Zaphias. Flynn mentioned him. He fled into the woods. He must have come out the other side. He snuck to the house by walking in your footprints."

"You really think so?" She clutched his shoulder.

He nodded wearily. "He snuck inside and killed your family. He'd been lost in the woods for a while and it drove him a little batty."

"Oh, Yuri, I knew you could do it!" She embraced him and Yuri's skin crawled from her touch. She pulled back, smiling brightly, and then smacked him across the face so hard it must have left a mark. "You made that up you lying cretin."

Clara gripped his ear, squeezing it between thumb and finger, and Yuri flinched at how much it hurt. A sting like a blade radiated through his ear and into the side of his face. In his shock, he had to clamp his teeth into his lip to hold in a plea for her to let go.

"He told me you're lying, and it's true because I didn't come home until  _after_  they were killed, you idiot!" She twisted again and the pain spiked. "No one could have walked in my footprints to get in. You're just trying to suck up to me!"

Why did his ear hurt so much? It throbbed right where the rat had bit him in his dream, except that hadn't actually happened. It didn't make sense. He'd dreamed that, he'd  _dreamed that_. If he'd really been attacked by rats, did that mean he had to believe that there had been a shadowy figure that got them off?

Unless… he remembered talking to the shadows but he didn't know how loud he'd been. He'd been shouting for help, hadn't he? Nothing had ever freaked him out like the horror of being eaten alive by rats. He'd screamed for anyone to get the rats off… hadn't he? It seemed the sensible thing to do, but then he wasn't sure if he'd had the strength to scream. He certainly didn't think he could manage now, and that had only been… how long ago? Last night? Two days ago? How long had he been asleep?

"...and I try so hard to please you but you're never grateful and you're so inconsiderate and stupid and rude and…"

Clara's words washed over him. Yuri couldn't bring himself to focus on them if he tried. She was waving her hands in his face now, his ear forgotten. Through the aches permeating every inch of his body, he couldn't even pick out a specific pain in his ear anymore. He struggled to follow her hands, just enough to see that there was no smear of blood on her fingers. So, wait, was his ear not injured after all? Or maybe that had happened so long ago the scab was set? Had Clara even grabbed his ear? Maybe it was like that vision he'd had earlier when she asked if he liked the food. Assuming  _that_  was just a vision and not him losing track of her movements and mood swings and… fuck… he had no idea what was happening.

And she was  _still_  talking. He tried to focus, he really did, because who knew when she'd ask him a question and if he wasn't listening, she'd probably hurt him again. It was just meaningless raving, though. Ranting about not being good enough, about his being a disappointment, and a thousand other things Yuri couldn't decipher.

He stared at the ground. Shadows wavered in time with the lamp's flame. Clara's didn't, of course, but he was past worrying about it. He just didn't have the energy to try to figure it out. His eyelids drooped. If he concentrated, he was pretty sure he could pick out heightened pain in his ear and neck from being bitten, but he wasn't sure. It was impossible to tell if anything had bitten his fingers, considering how much they already hurt.

Yuri tried to focus on the pain rather than Clara's words. It was a trick he'd learned long ago, when apple gels were far beyond the budget of reckless teenagers getting into scrapes. Ignoring pain just made it more determined to get your attention. Yuri tried to embrace his pain, let it flow through him instead of battering against him, but just when he'd gotten a grip on the ache in his face, the stabs from his fingers perked up and demanded more attention. His stomach was too empty and his head to cloudy to manage the mental fortitude of managing all this pain.

His head tipped forward and the world blurred as exhaustion tried to drag him under again. Clara would be really mad if he passed out while she was talking to him. As it was, she was going to find out soon he hadn't been listening to a word she was saying, and she was sure to punish him harshly.

Clara's hand cupped the side of his face. "Yuri, dear, are you hungry?"

Yuri pulled his eyes up. "Uh…?"

"I brought you some tasty soup. It's your favourite."

He smelled the warm, savoury broth near his face. The bowl was full. But… hadn't she just…?

A spoon shoved toward his face and Yuri automatically parted his lips. His stomach was far too empty to question food, but he was certain she'd fed him not ten minutes ago, and he didn't recall her leaving to refill the bowl. Had he fallen asleep for a whole day, and she hadn't woken him up when she saw him sleeping during her lecture? Or had the earlier feeding been a dream? Or was  _this_  a dream?

Yuri squeezed his fingers together and nearly choked on the cube of meat. Pain like that could only happen in real life… probably.

* * *

Yuri was awake. He knew he was because he felt the chill and smelled the must of rats and tasted blood in his mouth.

Yuri was asleep. He knew he was because his body was locked in the paralysis of a dream, and he sensed something watching him and therefore it had to be a nightmare.

These two realities could not possibly be happening at the same time, which was why the only thing Yuri was really sure of was that he was miserable. Either he was awake and there really was a presence lurking in the darkness, or he'd passed into a realm of dreaming where physical pain and discomfort could be felt. Neither option was preferable.

"I know you're there," he whispered. "You helped me with the rats." Clara had said days ago that she had put out poison and traps to deal with the rat problem. Actually, hadn't that been a few hours ago? No, probably yesterday. He was sure.

Around him was the outline of a forest. Black-on-black trees stood sentry around the basement. Sitting in front of the trees were Karol, Judith, and Repede. They were chatting, but it was like listening underwater. Just seeing them so content and free made his heart pang. Was he ever going to get out of here?

The image of his friends faded, overtaken by shadows filled with eyes. He couldn't  _see_  the eyes, but he knew they were there because he could feel them boring into him.

"Stop staring at me." Yuri fidgeted. "I know you're looking at me. It's rude to stare."

Tiny Ba'uls flew through the room. Yuri squeezed his eyes tight and they were gone when he opened them again, though the outlines of the trees were turning wavy.

Footsteps shuffled behind him and Yuri tensed. He knew it couldn't be rats because Clara had told him she took care of the problem only an hour ago. A ragged breath that wasn't his own tickled the back of his neck. Every muscle tightened and he waited for something to happen, but it didn't. Yuri tried to turn his head around, but it was too heavy and every movement made his eyes blur and unconsciousness creep closer. There was no light to see anything anyway, but he didn't need his eyes to know someone was standing right behind him, watching, waiting.

"Stop it. Stop just standing there." A voice in his head said,  _Yuri, you're not supposed to talk to the hallucinations_. Another one said,  _but wouldn't it be nice if you could just make Clara suffer as much as you have?_  He wasn't sure where the second one had come from, but it _did_  sound nice. Just imagining her being in half the pain he was in made him want to smile.

He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping it would wake him up from whatever dream he was having. Nothing happened, because he wasn't dreaming. Of course, that's what he would think if he  _was_  dreaming. He kept his eyes closed and took deep breaths.  _Relax, Yuri. There's nothing there. Nothing there at all. You're not crazy, just sleep deprived, and all you need is a good night's sleep to make it all clear up_. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don't think about the vaguely human presence standing right behind you and just waiting for your defenses to lower to…to… whatever it wanted.  _Calm the fuck down._

He was standing in a field. Snowflakes swirled around his head, but the cold didn't bite. Sunlight gleamed off the pristine snow, so bright he had to squint. The sun was directly overhead, but didn't seem to be giving off any heat. In the distance, he heard a thunk.

Yuri began to walk. There wasn't much else to do and it felt nice to stretch his legs. Smoke drifted into the sky up ahead and he directed himself to what was probably a chimney. There wasn't anything else to walk toward but snow, anyway.  _Thunk_! It was coming from the same direction as the smoke.

Yuri had always liked the way snow squished under his boots in winter. Every step was so satisfying.  _Crunch. Squelch. Thunk_! He held out his hand as he walked. Mutilated fingers oozed blood. Drips of red splashed to the bright snow. Funny that his arm wasn't casting a shadow, but that was because his was busy lurking behind him, following him.

He kept walking -  _crunch, crunch, crush, smash_. The Messer farmhouse came into view now, smoke piping from the chimney.  _Thunk!_  That was from the barn, though. Where the rappigs were kept.

In the doorway of the house, he stopped. Red-brown stains covered the kitchen. Flies buzzed over an abandoned breakfast. By the staircase, he spotted a door and he knew that it led to the basement. A wave of dread that nearly made him throw up forced Yuri to turn away from that door and back into the bright outdoors. He couldn't go near that basement - he just couldn't.

_Thunk!_

Yuri directed himself toward the barn. The large door hanging open was the obvious source of the noise.  _Thunk!_  This close, Yuri could hear a squelch in the background. His feet crunched to the entrance of the barn.

There had been times in Yuri's life where he learned something new that was, in retrospect, so obvious he felt like a moron for never figuring it out before. Times when he learned the answer to a mystery that he hadn't even been wondering about. When enlightenment shot through his body like electricity and the whole world sharpened its picture with layers of new understanding.

The rappigs ran away the night before the murders.

There were no other animals on the farm.

The ground was frozen - wild animals were scarce, a grave would be hard to dig for a lone girl.

There were no other animals on the farm.

The bodies were no longer in the kitchen.

_There were no other animals on the farm._

Every meal, Clara fed him fresh meat.

Yuri's knees locked. His breath stammered. There was only one thing on the thick wooden table, and it was a leg.

Clara looked up with a bloody butcher's knife in hand. "What are you doing here?"

His voice was trapped in his throat.

"Go back inside." She stalked toward him and Yuri began backing up. Clara hefted the knife, blood dripping down its length. "You shouldn't be out here."

Yuri stumbled backward. His eyes kept darting between the table and Clara and his mind couldn't focus on anything but the realization that was already trying to make himself vomit. His foot slipped on ice, sending him crashing to the ground. His head fell through the snow and into darkness.

When his eyes shot open, Clara stood in front of him. Yuri panted and blinked a few times - a dream, it was just a dream. It wasn't true. But it didn't matter, did it? He may not have seen the leg in real life, but the fact remained that he had no explanation for Clara's supply of fresh meat. The snow would provide refrigeration. Clara didn't strike him as a hunter. It fit together in an awful form of sense.

"Having a little nap?" Clara asked sweetly.

His muscles were sore but their stiffness helped him keep his neck straight and his head from slumping forward. As he sat there, trembling from both cold and shock, he couldn't form any words. She wouldn't. She couldn't. That was  _too_  vile, even for her, right? It had to be. Oh, please, it had to be.

"I brought you breakfast."

He stared at the soup in her hand. It couldn't  _really_  be….

( _You thought it was tasty_.)

Clara's spoon dipped into the broth and pulled out a human eyeball, dripping blood into a thick red broth. Yuri recoiled, shouted -

And opened his eyes again. They were still closed, though. No, wait, it was just the darkness of the room. Thick blackness pressed on his watery eyes as his chest laboured for breath. Tendrils of red light curled out of the shadows and Yuri clamped his eyes shut. That one was just a hallucination right? Right?!

 _What is happening to me!?_  He shook from stress and cold, his joints creaked, bruises ached, and something alarmingly like tears were welling up in his eyes, but Yuri wasn't ready to let himself sob over this. He wasn't  _that_  pathetic. Yet.

It couldn't last much longer. After all these months, his friends were definitely looking for him. They'd find him any day now. They'd get him out, and he could go home and lounge in bed, and throw a ball for Repede, and everything would be all right. It would happen soon. Please.

And then another voice slithered out of the shadows, skipping his ears to arrive directly in his head and sounding rather like his own:  _Don't you just want to_ kill  _Clara?_

* * *

Clara brought soup for him later. Yuri took one look at the lumps of mystery meat and turned his head away.

"I'm not hungry," he mumbled.

"Nonsense. You need to keep eating if you want to be strong."

It could have just been a dream. Yuri's stomach was as empty as ever and the broth smelled so  _good_. Just thinking it smelled good made him want to vomit, though. How could he think  _that_  smelled good when he knew what it (probably) was? He had to be some kind of monster to even consider eating it. Yuri was not a monster and he was not insane and he was not going to eat people, dammit! This shouldn't even be a consideration!

"Open your mouth, dear." She rested her hand on his forehead and pushed his head back.

Yuri clamped his jaw shut and couldn't tear his eyes away from the meat on the spoon. Was that her mother? Or little brother? How much of them had he already eaten? Maybe she did have stores of rappig somewhere. It was possible, right? The family would have been preparing for winter, so they'd have slaughtered one of the rappigs and stored the meat.

But he wasn't about to risk it. Keeping his teeth firmly together, he seethed, "Not. Hungry."

He was prepared for her to hit him. He was turning down her hospitality and that had to warrant some punishment. Yuri braced himself, but then Clara set the bowl on the table.

"Oh, alright then, I don't want to force you."

What? There had to be more to it. She was going to flip out any second now. Yuri watched her with trepidation, every muscle tensed and ready for the blow.

"You really should eat, though. You have to keep your strength up when you're feeling under the weather."

Was this it? When she was going to hit him? Oh, damn, just hit him and get it over with.

"Now what about the case? Have you thought about that?"

Yuri slumped his head. "You didn't seem to like my last solution."

"That's because it wasn't a good explanation., silly."

"Ok, so… how 'bout this. You're always talking about some guy in the woods, right? What if  _he_  did it?" It made sense, since he had been lurking around the basement for ages. Only, he hadn't, because he didn't actually exist and Yuri wasn't crazy.

"Him?" Clara balked at this. "Oh, no, he would never do such a thing. He is my friend."

"Then where is he now?"

"In the forest, I suppose. He's very kind to me and he understands me. He only ever wants to help me!"

"Just… outa curiosity, what does he look like?"

"Hm…." Clara cocked her head and put a finger to her lips. For a second, the motion reminded him painfully of Estelle and grief stabbed Yuri's chest as he wondered if he'd ever see her again. "I don't really know. I've never seen him clearly. He lurks behind the trees so I usually just see his shadow."

Based on her smile, she didn't see anything at all creepy about befriending a mysterious shadow in an allegedly cursed forest. "And he talks to you?"

"Oh, yes. He gives me advice."

"Yeah… I remember." He'd given her the advice to take pliers to his fingernails, if he was recalling right. What a stand up guy. What other bits of advice had he given her? That thought brought him to another one, which he didn't dare voice: had he told her to kill her family? There were mental illnesses like that, right? Voices telling you to do terrible things? Clara was adamant she hadn't killed them, and maybe she really thought she hadn't. Maybe she let the voice take over. Maybe  _him_ , and all her outbursts of violence, were just manifestations of her mental illness?

"I don't know who killed your family," Yuri mumbled to the floor. "I don't have a damn clue. Keeping me here longer isn't gonna change that."

Clara's hand swung at him and Yuri flinched, but she only patted his shoulder. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I know you can figure it out. Now, are you sure you don't want some soup?"

"No," he blurted before he could reconsider. He was  _so_  hungry… but not enough for that.

Clara kissed his forehead and Yuri suppressed a shudder. "Think hard. Let me know when you figure it out."

When she was gone, the darkness gave him time to think. If 'he' was all in Clara's head, that didn't explain the weirdness with her shadow, or the presence that even now he could feel stirring in the dark. It was watching him, like a predator waiting for an opening to pounce. Yuri told himself his fears were just paranoia, but that raised an even more troubling question: was insanity contagious?


	5. Unravelling

Every time Clara tried to feed him, Yuri refused. It didn't matter how much his stomach rumbled or his mouth watered; he could not bring himself to eat that soup. Of course, turning down food got harder every time she came down. He hadn't eaten in days and his stomach was a black hole demanding sustenance.

On one occasion, possibly three days since he'd last eaten or maybe more, the scent of stewed meat made his whole body ache with longing. He could barely keep his head up and when he did it spun with dizziness. It smelled like the most delicious culinary concoction the word had ever seen and he had to fight to keep himself from opening his mouth to accept it. Yuri twisted his hands so he could grab his injured fingers and squeeze. The pain that blasted through his hand was like a shower of ice water to startle him awake.

 _It's not worth it_. It smelled so good and he was hungry enough to eat an entire Giganto monster, but it was not worth it. Yuri took a deep whiff of the alluring scent and then squeezed again. Some primal part of his brain didn't care that potentially eating a murdered child was _absolutely not ok_ , but maybe he could force it to associate Clara's stew with pain and stop the craving.

It was useless to try to think of a possible murder solution. When Yuri managed to stop daydreaming about food, all he could focus on was how uncomfortable he was. It was such a joke, really. She wouldn't let him leave until he solved the mystery, but he wouldn't be able to solve it until she let him leave and get his head in order. It seemed like he'd been tied to this chair for a lifetime. After all this pain, discomfort, and horror, he was  _still_   _here_. He'd never wanted anything more than to simply not be here.

"Are you thirsty, dear?"

She held a cup of water. That, at least, he could drink. He already had layers of fresh bruises from how often he "insulted her" by refusing her tea or stew. Part of him didn't want the water because it just awakened his hunger, but he knew he had to drink  _something_  or let himself die of dehydration.

Yuri weakly nodded, but even this tiny movement was enough to send the world spinning. His lips cracked open and she brought the cup to his mouth. Yuri took a breath and a thick, coppery scent hit his nose. His eyes shot open as she tipped the cup into his mouth and thick, hot blood ran down his throat.

Yuri shouted and whipped his head away, causing the cup to fly from her hand and hit the floor. He gathered his saliva and spat the flavour to the floor, still shaking. He could taste it, thick and metallic, coating his mouth.

Yuri barely noticed the slap against his cheek.

"Oh, you're turning your nose up at  _water_  now?"

Blood. It had been blood. He could still taste it. He saw the cup on the floor, saw the clear liquid splashed on the concrete, but he  _knew_  it had been blood. Even the water wasn't safe anymore. She'd fed him blood and then changed reality to trick him into believing it had just been water. Well, he wasn't falling for it! Her shadow looked normal, today, too, but what did that mean? It was a trick. She'd found a way to hide it. He wasn't going to let her get the better of him.

* * *

Yuri lay on his side. This hadn't been intentional, but he'd been trying to break loose again and this time he struggled too hard. At least, that was what he thought had happened. His memories wavered and oozed around his throbbing head Within that mess of thoughts was the memory of the last time he'd had any food or water, but he couldn't find it now.

A hand brushed the side of his face. Yuri flinched but didn't have the strength to pull away. Clara was upstairs, so it had to be his visitor from the shadows. "Don't," he mumbled. He wished it would stop touching him. It was probably going to hit him, too.

Words slithered into his head: " _You've suffered so much_."

Yuri twitched and jerked his head away from the icy hand. It was one thing to talk to him, and quite another to use his own voice to plant words in his head.

" _She would leave you here until your death._ " The hand returned, this time brushing over his chest.

Don't remind him and don't touch him.

" _It isn't fair_ ," the voice whispered. " _You've done nothing to deserve this, and she's imprisoned you, tortured you, humiliated you_."

"Leave me alone."

" _She deserves to suffer even a fraction of the misfortune she's forced upon you_."

Yes, yes she did. Yuri had never been so satisfied to imagine another human in pain. Something rustled in the distance and panic flared - rats! He was on the ground; they'd swarm him in an instant! He squirmed again in a last-ditch effort to escape before they arrived to eat him alive.

It would be a fitting death, though, wouldn't it? Considering  _he'd_  eaten a person, and now it was his turn. Yuri shuddered with revulsion at just the thought.  _I didn't do it on purpose! I didn't know. I didn't know it was human flesh that I thought tasted so good…._.

" _Do not fear_." The hand stroked his cheek. Don't touch. " _I won't let them harm you. I want to help you_.  _You don't have to die this way: miserable, alone, and afraid."_

Yuri summoned every drop of energy he could muster to croak, "Me? Afraid? A-as if."

A hand grabbed his, twisted, and crushed his damaged fingers against the rope. Yuri yelped at the searing pain of freshly opening the scabs. He chewed his lip until it bled as his pain radiated through his hand.

And then the rats arrived. Their whiskers tickled his hands and his breath came in desperate, heaving gasps. "Stop them," he hissed, near panic.

There was no answer. In fact, he couldn't even feel another presence in the room. He was alone with the rats, who were even now crawling over his hands and -

Chewing the rope? The fresh blood smeared on the rope attracted the rats' appetites and he could feel the bindings loosen as they nibbled. The rats squeaked and gnawed and crawled over themselves in their eagerness to taste his blood. Teeth sank into his fingers, but between the already-present pain and excitement of loosening ropes, he barely noticed.

He gave a tug. After his years of being down here, he'd grown accustomed to the resistance every time he tried to get loose. This time, his hands kept going and the final threads snapped. Yuri let out a breath in disbelief, hands trembling.

Rats were still trying to get at his hand, though, so he brushed them off pulled the rope away from his chest. Moving quickly, he wiggled away from the chair and reached between his legs to fumble with the knot around his ankles. It was hard with his left hand nearly incapacitated, but after a few minutes of struggling while the rats were distracted by his bloody rope, he got his legs free as well.

It took a few tries to get to his feet and even then he'd been more stable while trashed. It didn't matter, though, because he was free! Free, free, free! He was going to get out of here and  _kill Clara_. Find her and smash her head into the ground and punch her until her face was broken and bloody and -

Yuri clutched his head and forced himself to stop. He wasn't that kind of person. He did  _not_ kill for pleasure.

It didn't matter. He was leaving. Yuri staggered in the direction of the stairs, hands reaching out to find them. At last they hit wood, but it took him a couple seconds to process that he was touching tree bark. How… strange.

A cold wind blew and then he heard footsteps tromping through the forest. Yuri turned his head, confused, and saw a man in work clothes, old boots, and carrying a long-handled axe walking toward him.

"There you are," the man said. "Come on, we're running late."

"...What?"

The man passed him, and when Yuri turned his head to follow him, he saw a forest stretching into the distance. The man walked along a trail through trees lit by a grey dawn light.

"Well?" The man stopped and turned back to him. "Are you coming or not?"

"Sure…." Yuri struggled to maintain focus on reality, but everything about this man was clear. He seemed familiar, but Yuri couldn't place him. With nothing else to do, Yuri fell into step beside him.

"Nice morning, isn't it?"

Yuri looked around the trees and blinked. Their leaves had already fallen, but there was no snow yet to cover their nakedness. The muddled brown of the bare bark and the pale grey of the sky made the whole world drab. "I guess."

"Yeah, me too."

"What do you mean?"

"Probably a few hours."

"Uh." It seemed like the man was having a conversation all his own. They kept walking and the man kept talking, but this time Yuri didn't respond at all. It quickly became apparent that his responses were meaningless and the man would keep going like an automaton.

They were deep in the forest now. Yuri glanced over his shoulder and couldn't see any hint of the basement he'd left. He was starting to grow concerned, because he had no idea what was going on, where he was, or how to communicate with his companion. He hoped this didn't turn into a full-day hike, because he was still exhausted and sore, even if his injuries had fuzzily drifted to the back of perception.

"Say…" The man slowed and turned around to face Yuri. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

Yuri analyzed the man's face. Where had he seen him before?

"I think you know what about: Rosa."

Rosa. Yuri had heard that name, and recently. She was… Clara's mother! Right, Clara's victims. Her brother Jonas, her mother Rosa, and her…. The answer clicked. The last time Yuri had seen this man, he'd been more than twenty years older, covered in blood, with egg smeared on his face. Clara's father, Garrick.

Then Garrick dropped his axe, grabbed the lapels of Yuri's shirt, and slammed him against a tree. "You know exactly what I'm talking about!"

Yuri's head spun and darkness dipped into his vision for a moment. "Hey, I have nothing to do with this," he grumbled and tried to pry Garrick's hands off.

"Do you think I'm a fool? Were you and Rosa going to giggle behind my back, thinking I was obliviously raising another man's baby?"

"I'm not the one you should be talking to." Just who did Garrick think he was?

It didn't matter what he said, though. Garrick was following a script and didn't seem to notice that the other player wasn't acting along. "Didn't mean to  _what_ , exactly? What did you think would happen when you slept with your brother's wife?!"

There was a pause. Presumably his brother was supposed to respond, but Yuri had given up trying to communicate in this play.

Garrick release Yuri and took a few steps back. "I never thought you'd betray me like this." He curled his lips and spat on the dead leaves.

He must have thought Yuri said something, and Yuri would love to know what his brother had originally said. It must have been biting, for Garrick grabbed his axe and brandished it at Yuri. "Don't you dare."

Yuri held up his hands and backed away. "Look, man, I'm not who you think I am. Put that axe down."

"You think I'm going to let you put one finger on my wife again?"

Garrick was breathing heavily now, his knuckles white around the shaft of the axe. "Shut your damn mouth! I gave you a home and this is how you repay me!?"

"Listen, I'm not-"

"Don't talk about her like that!"

The brother said something. Whatever it was, it drove rage onto Garrick's face.

"I'm not losing her to a piece of crap like you! That accursed baby might not be mine, but she's still my wife you bastard!"

The swing of the axe caught Yuri by surprise. He only had time to start saying, "No-" before the blunt side smashed into his head. Yuri toppled to the ground, the pain a distant explosion, like it was happening to someone else. His ears filled with a thunderous ringing and he saw nothing but red-tinged darkness.

When sensation began to clarify again, he felt liquid heat pooling on the side of his head and heard a whispered, "Shit. Shit. I didn't mean - shit." Leaves crunched with short, nervous steps and then hands gripped below his armpits. The world slipped out of focus again.

Yuri came to for a few seconds at a time, always to the sensation of being dragged over dry leaves. At one point he tried to speak, but it came out garbled and he choked on blood.

Something hard and rough scraped his torso and Yuri pried his left eye open, the right one caked shut with blood. He heard heavy breaths, Garrick's, and the man's strong hands hefting him over the knotted lip of a dying elm tree that had been hollowed out by fire.

"Wait," Yuri croaked, and then he fell over the side and crumpled into the trunk. "'M not… dead yet…."

If Garrick heard, he didn't respond. Yuri heard a few more heaving breaths and then the sound of footsteps running away through the woods.

He tried to call out, but his voice was too weak. "Don't," Yuri breathed and reached up, trying to grab the edge of the opening. He sat in a dirty, cramped hollow within the tree, legs squeezed against his chest, with barely the strength to raise his eyelids, let alone his body. He could see light overhead through the narrow opening, but it might as well be on a different planet for all he could reach it. "Don't leave me here…."

 _That bastard_ , Yuri found himself thinking.  _He didn't… he didn't even make sure I was properly dead before dumping my body_. Rage began to grow. How  _dare_  Garrick dump him like this?! They were supposed to be brothers! He'd smashed him in the head and stashed his body in a tree to try to hide the crime. Didn't even have the decency to slit his throat before leaving him for dead.

Yuri squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear those thoughts, because they weren't his. They kept flowing in, though, and maybe Yuri was too weak to fight them off or maybe they were so similar to how he already felt that it was easy for them to find a home in his brain.

_That bastard… that bastard… how could he do this to me? I'm going to die here… how can I die here, in a fucking tree? I don't want to die! I don't… I don't want to die…. not like this…._

He clawed at the inside of the tree.  _Skrrrr_ , nails scraped on wood. Yuri was barely even thinking anymore, just following the paces of the memory. His fingers dug into dry bark in a futile attempt to carve his way out. He knew it was pointless, but he had to do something. He couldn't just curl up and die here, rotting away in a tree where he'd never be found.

And Garrick would go home to his wife, the wife that was supposed to run away with  _him_  so they could raise their child in peace, and he'd probably tell some bullshit story about an eggbear while his own brother's body rotted in a tree trunk.

He was still clawing at the tree. Clawing at the bark under his fingernails were ragged and bloody. He needed to get out, even if he wouldn't live much longer, and force Garrick to pay for what he'd done.

These weren't Yuri's thoughts. He didn't even know where they came from. He just felt the fury stirring in his chest, growing stronger as his own life faded. The world was growing darker, his thoughts muddled and slipped away from him, and all he had left was pure, simmering hatred.

* * *

Yuri was sitting in the basement. He hadn't died, but he remembered it. He recalled every long, painful minute of clawing at the tree and trying to find the strength to call for help. He remembered blood dripping down his face and the pain growing in intensity. He couldn't shake the memory of praying for death to release him from that wooden coffin.

There was no way to know how long he'd been conscious since waking up from that dream, or vision, or whatever it had been. It was a struggle to hold onto consciousness for more than five minutes straight in the first place. Days without food or water had left him feeling like a husk of a person.

"Are you going to eat today?" Clara was in front of him now. Who knew when she'd arrived.

Yuri minutely shook his head.

"You're making yourself sick."

It smelled so good….  _Just eat it, Yuri. You need food and water or you'll die_.

Not worth it. He squeezed his fingers to fight the urge to give in. The pain made him bite his lip, which was already swollen and sore from when he'd bitten it when the rats came.

"I don't know why you're so needlessly defiant." She set the bowl on the table. "You'd be so much happier if you just did as you were told."

"I know…" Yuri wheezed, "I know it was him."

"Pardon?"

Yuri dragged his head up and then let it rest against the back of the chair. "He killed them."

Clara's eyes narrowed. "No. We already talked about this. He would never."

Yuri closed his eyes and shook his head, which made the whole world flip-flop around his head. "Just ask him." It was hard to talk when his tongue was sandpaper. "He wanted… revenge."

"What are you talking about?"

"'Cause your dad… killed him."

Her voice grew cold. "What did you say about my father?"

"Ha…. not even your actual dad. But, yeah….. See for yourself. Check the tree."

Clara griped his hair and tilted his head back. Yuri pried his eyes open to see her angry face inches from his. "What tree?"

"Old hollow elm in the forest."

"How do you know about his tree?" she hissed.

"Honestly… I don't blame him for wantin' to kill." Yuri heaved one shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe he talked you into doin' it. I don't know."

"You shouldn't know about the tree."

"Who cares? It's a tree."

"How did you find out?!" Her grip on his hair stung his scalp. "That was our place. That was where I met him. That was  _special_."

"Heh… and did'ja ever look  _inside_  the tree?"

"He told me not to. But you shouldn't know about it at all!" Her eyes darted around the room. "You left, didn't you?

"What?"

"You must have. You snuck out to investigate the forest."

Yuri snorted. "Why'd I come back?"

"You didn't want me to know." She let go of his hair and pulled herself to her full height. "You can't fool me, though. You think I'm dumb?! You've never respected me! You snuck out of here and went into the woods to intrude on our special place and then came back thinking I'd never realize you were gone!"

Her cheeks flushed with anger and her eyes filled with livid fire. Any second now, she would hit him. Yuri braced himself, knowing pain was coming and wishing she'd just get it over with. "You're… crazy." In what world would he sneak out of here and then  _come back_ , and how did she think he'd tied himself up again?

"Crazy!? I'm not the one refusing food and defying rules! You can't go into the woods, Yuri. It's dangerous! He doesn't like strangers in the woods. You must stay here with me, and not try to run away again."

"I didn't." What was the point in trying to argue with her?

"You'll end up just like my poor rappigs, disappearing into the forest. I won't let you go missing like that! I need to… to..." An idea lit up her face. "Yes, I know. Don't worry," she patted his head, "and stay right there. I'll be back in a minute."

Yuri's heart throbbed once she was gone. What did she have planned? It couldn't be good. He had to get out of here before she returned, but that was useless. He didn't even try to struggle out of the rope, because by now he knew that the only result would be worsening the rope-burn on his wrists.

Clara returned, prancing down the stairs with excitement. Her arms were full of supplies that turned Yuri's heart to lead. The damp cloth was fairly innocuous, but he trembled at the sight of bandages, an iron pole, and a metal bucket glowing with heat.

"This is probably going to sting a bit." She gathered his hair in her hands and tucked it behind his shoulders. "But you do need to be punished a little for disobeying me. You snuck out and intruded on his space, and that's on top of being very rude and turning your nose up at my cooking. It's good, though, because if you're going to be a naughty boy and sneak out into the forest, this will make sure you come home again." She tugged open the front of his shirt and smoothed the fabric back.

Yuri shivered as the cold air hit his chest, but his eyes fell on the glowing coals in the bucket and he had a sick feeling he was going to miss the cold in a few minutes. Heat radiated from the bucket in shimmering waves, and the wavering light from below cast Clara's face in an eerie shadow. On the ground, though, her shadow seemed as fuzzy and natural as possible. That caused his heart to throb, too - if the… the presence or whatever… wasn't lurking in her shadow, where was it now?

The cold cloth hit Yuri's chest. "Don't worry, I've done this before." She quickly washed an area over his sternum. Clara giggled and then added, "Well, only to rappigs, but flesh is flesh!"

"Don't."

The cloth lay abandoned on the table and then she picked up the iron rod. It looked like a fire poker, but there was flat shape on one end. As it crossed the dim light, Yuri could make out a stylized M before she plunged it into the coals.

"Hush. If you didn't want to be punished, you shouldn't have snuck out."

"I didn't." His chest was tight with fear which made his rapid breathing difficult.

The coals clinked as she rustled the rod. "It'll be over in seconds. Don't be a baby; the rappigs don't make a big fuss."

Because they were stupid animals who didn't know what was coming. Yuri, however,  _did_  know what was coming and his chest already ached in expectation. "Don't do this. Please. I'm sorry." He'd done nothing worth apologizing for, but who cared at this point? "I'm sorry. Please don't."

"You should have thought of that before you disobeyed me." She pulled the rod out and Yuri's eyes locked on the glowing M. It was so bright it hurt his eyes.

"No," he whispered as she brought it close and his head gave tiny shakes. "No, no, please, no." Part of his mind was still in control enough to say,  _what are you doing?! Yuri Lowell doesn't beg_.

What did it really matter, though? He was exhausted, tied to a chair, sore, and utterly dependant on a woman he hated. What pride did he have left, and what good had it done him? Talking back just got him hurt. He remembered a time when getting roughed up was an acceptable price for the satisfaction of a biting remark, but now he just… he just didn't want to hurt anymore. He would do anything to stop being so miserable, or to stop the misery from getting even worse.

So he whispered, "Don't," as the iron rod came close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from it. His voice trembled as much as his body as she held his shoulder to keep him still. "Please… please, no…."

It pressed into his chest, and for a split-second Yuri felt nothing but pressure and heard the sizzle. That split-second was far too short, because then the pain settled, made itself comfortable, and stretched its fiery wings.

Yuri was aware that the basement was loud because of screaming, but even after figuring out it was his voice, he couldn't stop. It seemed to sear right through him, filling his nose with cooking flesh and his ears with sizzling.

She seemed to hold it against him for hours, but even once it was gone he could still feel the heat. Yuri heaved for breath, each movement of his chest making it hurt more. Tears dripped down his cheeks and the ropes were the only things holding him upright. The pain spiked again when Clara patted the fresh burn with her damp cloth and then carefully pressed dressings against it. Yuri whined as his whole body shook from the agony bleeding out of his chest and he couldn't even summon the presence of mind to care that he was sobbing.

Clara rubbed his head. "There, there, maybe you'll think twice before sneaking out next time."

"Please…" he moaned while Clara wrapped bandages around his chest. "Stop. Please…. please just let me go. I c-can't… can't help… just let me go… please…."

 


	6. Monster

"You're going to die here," Flynn said. It wasn't  _really_  Flynn, of course, because his best friend appearing out of nowhere would be too good to be true. And honestly, his voice didn't even sound perfect. It was distorted, distant, and wavering, but he'd heard it enough times to know whose voice was getting screwed up.

Yuri didn't respond. He sat slumped in the chair, hurting. Heat throbbed through his chest while the pain in his fingers fought to maintain notice. How long ago had she burned him? Hours? Days? With how sharply it still burned, it could have been was minutes.

"Just drinking blood isn't going to be enough."

 _It's not blood_ , Yuri told Flynn - himself. When Clara shoved a cup at his mouth and it smelled of copper and tasted thick and metallic in his mouth, it wasn't  _really_  blood. He was just going crazy. He was at least fifty-percent certain of that, which was enough to force himself to drink it, if only when his throat was dry as a bone.

"You have to eat."

No. Shut up, Flynn. He had no such certainty about the food Clara kept shoving in his face, and he couldn't possibly allow himself to eat it.

"You'll die if you don't eat, Yuri!" Flynn was right in front of him now, screaming in his face. "Stop making choices that are bad for you! You're just going to let yourself starve to death?"

If the alternative was eating human flesh…..

The basement door swung open and Yuri flinched. His heart thumped faster as Clara descended the stairs. What did she want now? She was probably going to hurt him again.

"Look, she's brought food," Flynn said. "Eat it."

 _I can't_.

"You'll die if you don't."

His stomach had stopped rumbling ages ago; growling took too much energy. His insides were nothing but a hollow vacuum demanding food - food that was right in front of him, food that he would not, could not eat.

"Good morning, dear." Clara set her lantern on the table. "Did you have a nice sleep?"

It was morning? Yuri had been drifting in and out of consciousness, with plenty of hours spent in a limbo between them, for so long that hearing a concrete time of day unsettled him. What even was time? Morning, afternoon, night…. Wasn't it weird to break up a day like that? It seemed unreal to have anything but a constant stream of darkness where time had no meaning.

"Are you going to eat today?" She scooped a large spoonful from the bowl and held it near his face.

Smelled so good. Savoury meat and chopped carrots and a warm, flavourful broth… Yuri's mouth would have watered had he any saliva to spare. Fingers ached - he squeezed his hand to try to break the thoughts of how much he wanted to guzzle the whole bowl down his throat and then lick it clean.

"It's not human." Flynn's voice by his ear. "You were hallucinating when you saw her butchering her mother."

_But…._

"And she said she brought the rappigs home."

_No, she didn't._

"She did. Remember? A few days ago, she mentioned how happy she was that she'd found her babies."

 _I don't remember that_.

"It was right before she gave you that cup of water that you thought was blood because you're a moron."

_That didn't happen._

"You can't even remember that? Come on, Yuri, you're better than this. She definitely mentioned it. The rappigs came back so all the meat she's feeding you is fine."

 _Are you… sure?_  He could trust Flynn, right?

"Positive."

 _I don't remember that at all…_.

"That's because you're losing your mind."

 _Heh… that's right, isn't it?_   _Yes, yes, I am losing my mind, and that's why I don't remember her telling me what the soup is. It's not human at all! It's just rappig, just like she definitely said. It's safe to eat! I can eat!_

He opened his mouth.

"Good boy," Clara gushed and smiled as she fed him.

It was delicious. The pork was soft and moist and mixed together with the boiled carrots like a match made in heaven. Yuri savoured the wonderful flavour of pork - obviously pork - couldn't not be pork - and greedily opened his mouth for more after swallowing. The most delicious meal he'd ever had.

When the bowl was empty, Clara brushed Yuri's hair behind his ear. "There, now don't you feel better after having something to eat?"

Yuri pried his voice from the depths of his chest. "Let me go."

She patted his head. "Don't be silly, you haven't solved the mystery yet."

"Please…."

Clara ruffled his hair and then turned away. Yuri didn't want her to go, because even though he hated her, he hated being left alone in the darkness even more.

"Please," he muttered, fighting off tears. "Stop… let me out…."

She ignored him and trounced upstairs. The door shut and the darkness returned. Yuri sat motionless for an era until something inside him cracked and all the water he had left escaped through his eyes.

It hurt. His chest heaved to catch up with the sobs, and every movement sent stings through the raw burn. His throat scratched and cramped muscles shook. Snot dripped from his nose and tears covered his cheeks, but the best he could do to clean himself up was rub his face on his shoulder.

He just wanted this to be over. He wanted to go home and forget it ever happened, but that possibility seemed farther away than ever. If Clara was going to let him rot down here until he eventually died, he wished he could just end it quickly. He didn't want to be dead, but it sure seemed preferable to spending another day like this.

* * *

Time had passed. Yuri didn't care how much. Either he was alone in the dark trying to stop crying and wishing for death, or he sat with Clara and told himself how delicious her definitely-rappig soup was between begging her to untie him. Both scenarios were so miserable he tried to erase them from his memory, so he wasn't really sure how often either had happened.

The door opened. Clara came down the stairs slowly this time, and at the bottom she lurked near the stairs with the lantern close to her body. Her natural shadow fell against the side of the stairs while light exaggerated her sunken, hollow face.

"Yuri…."

Yuri breathed a little faster. She wasn't acting her normal self, which meant he had even less of an idea what she was going to do than normal. Was this an uncomfortable invasion of personal space day, or a pain day? He hoped it wasn't a pain day.

"I'm… sorry."

Ok. Not what he'd expected. Yuri raised his head a little and gave her a confused look.

"I know you can't help me. I don't…" She bowed her head and pressed her free hand into her forehead. "I don't know what I'm doing. I think… what if… what if I  _did_  kill my family?" When she raised her head again, her eyes glistened with tears. "That would mean I really am I horrible daughter, just like… like my father always said."

Yuri watched, silently. He wasn't sure what to say, if he even had the strength to voice it.

"I'm telling the truth. I don't remember killing them. I really don't! I don't know what's going on, but I'm scared, and I need help, but you can't offer it, and now I can't even get help from someone else or they'll find out what I've done to you."

Yuri struggled to find his voice. "Could… let me go."

She snuffed and shook her head. "But I can't. If I untie you, you'll kill me."

"No." He wouldn't (he would).

"It's like holding a wolf by the ears, and you know you can't hold it forever but you're scared to death of letting it go."

"Please. I just wanna go home." (And kill her).

"I can't. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going on. I was so sure I knew what I wanted but it's all just… slipping away." She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I'll think about it. I'm so sorry. Maybe it would be kinder to kill you quickly."

Yuri couldn't even argue with that. He'd rather die now than waste away down here for who knew how much longer.

* * *

 _I'm going to die down here…._  There was no question about that. He would never escape on his own and if his friends hadn't found him by now - surely years since he'd been captured - they never would. He would sit in this chair until his body ran out, and no one would ever find out what happened to him.

"She'll eat you, too." This time it was Judith's voice twisting out of the darkness. "She'll just chop you up and turn you into soup."

_No, she doesn't do that. Flynn said. Flynn told me it wasn't human._

Someone laughed. Yuri looked around to find the source, but all he saw were trees stretching away from him. "Oh, Yuri, you don't  _really_  believe that, do you?" It sounded an awful lot like Cumore.

 _Flynn wouldn't lie to me_.  _It's just rappig. I didn't eat a person. It was tasty, right? I wouldn't think human was tasty._

This got no response, which only gave him time to think about it and consider the possible ramifications. Yuri had rarely eaten fresh meat growing up. It was above their budget, so was saved for a rare treat. That was why he wasn't entirely sure the meal he'd eaten had tasted like pork.

"It's ok, Yuri." Estelle now. He couldn't see her, but her voice was right behind him, soft and gentle. "We still love you, even if you are a cannibal monster. Because it wasn't your fault, right? You're losing your mind, so nothing you do is your fault."

What a comforting thought.

Besides, who  _was_  Yuri Lowell, anyway? What if he wasn't even Yuri?

Of course he was. What a stupid thought. He remembered being Yuri in the outside world.

But he also remembered rats swarming all over him and a cup filled with blood, and he was reasonably sure those things weren't real. How did he know the rest of his memories weren't delusions, either? What proof did he have that the world beyond this forest even existed? Memory? You couldn't trust that. He was currently seeing swirls of light dancing around his vision as his eyes tried to find something to look at in the face of sheer darkness. The mind was hardly reliable evidence.

What if he was a crazy man who just  _thought_  he had friends and a life? After all, his 'memory' contained a giant squid in the sky that he killed with a huge sword and saved the world. Saved the world!? How could  _he_ , a sobbing wreck tied to a chair and hoping for death, have saved the world? He could have made it all up, and that meant none of it mattered. There were convictions in his heart: Yuri never gave up, Yuri didn't give in to despair, Yuri didn't sob like a baby when he was hurt, Yuri  _didn't eat people_ , Yuri would never mull over ways to kill himself with his hands tied. But he, the man in the chair, did all of those things, so how could he be Yuri?

And if he wasn't Yuri, that meant it was all right to feel those things! Yuri wouldn't eat human flesh even to survive, but if  _he_  wasn't Yuri, then he didn't have to worry about those rules engraved in his heart. They were for  _Yuri_ , but  _he_  was just a crazy man in a basement that could possibly be the entire universe.

It was such a… freeing thought. He hadn't felt this content since… since…..

"And that means murdering people is ok."

He didn't recognize this voice.

"You said killing for pleasure and revenge was a line you couldn't cross, but that was  _Yuri's_  rule, and it doesn't apply to you."

Yes… yes, that made sense.  _He_  had no rules, obviously, because people with rules weren't cannibals. So it would be ok to to smash Clara's skull into the ground until it was a bloody pulp.

"All you gotta do is get out of here. Then you can kill her. Make her feel every second of pain she made you endure. You want to and she deserves it. I'll help you."

 _Who are you_?

"I'm here to give you what you want."

_You're trying to make me follow your orders. Like Clara._

"No. I'll only help you get what you already want. You want this.

He thought about it. It didn't take long to reach a conclusion now that he'd stopped worrying about what Yuri would think.  _Yes… I'm going to murder her._

* * *

He sat in the darkness. He was pretty sure that at one point, he'd thought about escaping, but he'd given up on that already. The very idea of returning to light and freedom and comfort seemed as alien as planning to escape to the moon. He ate whatever was put in front of him, and drank whatever she gave him. Sometimes what she made him drink caused his insides to convulse and he ended up vomiting everything left in his stomach. Some distant part of his mind, some inner voice he'd stopped listening to because it made him miserable, screamed at him to fight, to protest, to  _stop crying all the time, dammit_.

But he couldn't stop feeling wretched all the time. There was no question that he was going to die down here, all alone and miserable, and no one would ever find out what had happened to him. The injustice of this, the pain, the despair, and the anger, were all he had left.

Faces and voices swam through the darkness. Some he recognized, some he didn't. It would be nice if they'd all just be quiet and leave him in peace, but he couldn't stop the disjointed pieces of conversation from people who might have been friends.

But that made sense, right? Hearing voices was what crazy people did, and he'd already done all sorts of things crazy people did, like eat suspicious ( _human_ ) pork. So it was ok! It all made sense. All the scratching in the trees - rats. They were the rats' fingernails as they clawed against the tree trunks and begged for someone to find them before they died and - they lived in the walls of the basement and wanted to eat his blood. Rats loved blood. Rats loved the taste of human flesh.

_(Just like you)._

Maybe there weren't even rats at all. Maybe all the scratching were his own fingernails clawing at the tree. Clawing at the rope. The bloody rope. His bloody hands. They were already bloody because he'd killed people like Ragou and Cumore, right? So that was proof that he was already like this. It was ok to daydream about murder.

 _(Because you know you want it_ )

And there would be lots of blood. Blood on his hands and down his throat and thumping in his heart and rushing in his ears. It was crazy to want to kill someone this much, right? But who said what was crazy? Other people did, but what if other people didn't even exist? He couldn't prove it. Maybe if he left this basement - this darkness -  _it's so cold_  - there would be nothing. Snow forever. A farmhouse, a forest, and a snowy field and all of it sprinkled with blood.

 _Thunk_. A door opened. Footsteps. It was Clara and fingers twitched with hatred. Ow - fingers hurt. Gnawed on by rats who ripped the nails off and rubbed them on the rope and ow, ow, everything hurt - fingers hurt, head hurt, joints hurt, chest hurt hurt hurt hurt hur-

"Are you hungry?"

Raw flesh burned as his hands tried to escape. Wrap them around her throat, squeeze until she stopped smiling at him with that stupid false-empathy.

Her thumb rubbed tears from under his eye. "I brought you your favourite soup."

 _(Eat it. Gain strength. Energy to kill_. _)_

Mouth opened. It was delicious. Savour the ( _it's a dead child_ ) pork.

He'd finished eating (that was fast). His lips were smeared with blood no broth. Clara held her lamp with one hand, then licked her thumb and wiped his face.

He struck! Teeth gnashed around her thumb and bit down - tasted blood. Like the rats, chewing, gnawing, bleeding, hurting. Clara shrieked and yanked her hand away, dropping the lantern. Glass smashed and oil wafted to his nose.

"How could you?!" The smack made his head spin in circles and an ache pulsed through his face. He swallowed her blood but couldn't do the same for the laughter bubbling out. What did she expect? She'd made him a cannibal, right?

 _(She deserves this_ ).

Clara cradled her hand as shadows stretched over her face. The light from the flames on the puddle of oil slowly diminished. Funny, though. Her shadow seemed so normal, so benign. Where was the monster lurking within?

 _(You know_ ).

"Why are you forcing me to punish you?!"

The steps creaked as Clara stormed out. He was still laughing, because she'd made such a shocked face when he bit her. She didn't know he hated her, did she? How could she not? The hatred was so strong he was sure it radiated from him like a beacon.

The chair rocked. Was it him?

_(It's time)_

He thrashed. Chair creaked, had to escape, time to go, couldn't do this anymore couldn't still be here  _let me out let me out_. The chair crashed to the ground. His head hit concrete but the throb was absorbed by all the aches he already dealt with. Sharp pain cut through his hands and it took a minute to realize it was fresh and not his fingers being jarred again. What hurt - the glass! He fell on a piece of shattered lamp that slashed his fingers.

But he could use that. Fingertips tore as he struggled to grip the curved glass. His touch was slippery with blood but he made it work. Press glass between index and middle, twist it just right, then saw - saw through blood and rope and pain and despair and -

Threads snapped and fingers ached and blood ran in rivulets down his hand. At first he couldn't even move, then rusty joints pried his arms out from behind his back. They creaked as they stretched and he almost wanted to put them back into the familiar position. But she'd be back soon, so he had to rush. Movement hurt but he fought through it - wriggled out of the rope around his chest, reached to his legs to tug the knots free. It was so hard to get a grip on them with pain and blood ruining his hands, but then his ankles were free, too.

Free? Really? He could move his limbs unhindered. How did that work? It felt… eerie. He could go anywhere! Get up and walk and run away from this basement and keep going and no rope would stop him. What a… strange concept. There was still enough light from the burning puddle to look down at his hands and see how ruined they were, but he felt nothing when he looked down. It was like they were someone else's hands.

Door opened again and Clara was stomping down the steps. He looked up and saw pliers in her hand again, and rage spiked as if someone had poured fresh oil on that burning puddle. She didn't notice until she reached the base of the stairs that his chair had fallen over.

"Oh no! What happened? Are you-?" Then she realized he was sitting up, unbound from the chair.

There were  _pliers_  in her hand. Was she planning to rip off more fingernails? Or something worse? There was a lot of pain you could inflict with pliers. How dare she? How  _dare_  she? Everything hurt, everything was suffering, misery was all he understood, and it was

all

_her_

_FAULT_.

Clara was on her way toward him, but then he sprung. She shrieked as he bolted toward her, the world passing in a blur. Bloody hands gripped her slight frame, twisted, threw her to the frozen concrete. And then he was on her, straddling her, punching her face until he heard something in it crack.

"Stop!" she screamed, trying to get away. "Don't - please - stop!"

Blood smeared her face, some her own and some his. It oozed from her twisted nose and screaming mouth. She was in so much pain -  _good_. Fire made the blood shine and heated his face even more than his own fury.

"Yuri, p-please!"

Who?

Fists beat down but he wished he had claws. Wished he had spikes. Wished he could find a way to inflict more pain. He grabbed her shoulders, lifted, and smashed down so her head cracked on the concrete. Once, twice more, blood smeared the back of her head. Clara babbled pleas between cries and shrieks

And she kept saying that name: Yuri. Yuri, please stop. Yuri, this isn't you.  _Yuri, what are you doing?_  Or maybe some of those were cries from his own head?

( _Don't listen. Think of how you've suffered.)_

In what way could he hurt her more? He just wanted to kill kill kill kill -

Fire flicked a few feet away and the brand on his chest throbbed with heated memories. He grabbed her and slammed her down again, right onto the fire. Her scream filled the basement and rung in his ears, echoing a voice in the back of his mind that kept screaming and wouldn't stop. Shut up.

He crawled away to avoid the flames as Clara twisted and writhed. On his bloody hands and battered knees, he watched as breaths made his shoulders heave. She rolled away from the puddle but oil now soaked the back of her dress and the fire was spreading. Clara screamed, thrashed, and got to her feet.

"You monster!" she screeched at him.

She stumbled toward him, fire lighting her up from behind and shadowing her face like a demon. He scrambled back in fear -  _she's going to hurt you again_. Getting to his feet was a struggle, and he wobbled, knees hurt, balance gone, head spinning - but she was almost on him, screaming and reaching, bringing the fire to drag him down with her.

He bumped into the stairs, clung for support, and then stumbled up them, more crawling than walking.

"Help me!" Clara screamed as the flamed reached her front and engulfed her chest. She staggered onto the steps and her high-pitched voice must have come close to cracking her throat. " _Please_ , Yuri!"

At the top of the stairs, he turned and sat on his knees, watching. Clara managed to make it up a few steps before collapsing, screaming and twitching. Fire swallowed her entire body and the scent of burning flesh reached up the stairs. It was familiar.

Laughter escaped his lips again, loud enough to drown out the screaming coming from his own mind. She'd burned him, and he burned her. It was funny. Ha-ha. Hilarious. She was burning and dying and hurting and  _suffering_ , and he couldn't stop laughing.  Funny how laughing and sobbing felt so similar. He almost couldn't tell the difference.  

The wooden stairs took the fire that escaped Clara's body, but she had stopped thrashing now. With nothing else to watch, he grabbed the door and dragged himself to his feet. He stumbled through the kitchen, still stained with blood. The scent of it mingled with the smoke from below.

To the door. It swung open and he winced, pulling his arm over his face. So bright. Too bright. Hurt. Sunlight gleamed on snow and made the whole world glow. Sharp air burned his lungs. And the snow stretched forever into the distance. Was there a town? He felt like… he thought… in a past life, there had been a town with a tree, but what was there now? The world was just the basement and the house and the forest.

For so long, all he'd wanted was to leave this house and never look back, and now… What if there really was no one else in the universe but him and Clara, and now she was dead? There was only one way to find out, so he took a step forward.

It took a few seconds to realize he wasn't still walking. He lay on his chest in the snow, and barely found the strength to push himself up. Ha-ha! He must be weaker than he thought. Well, he'd just rest here a little. A short rest and then…


	7. Found

“Do you want pasta for supper?” Rita asked as they strolled through the market.  “We could buy some tomatoes.  I know you wanted to try that sauce recipe.”

“Hm?”  Estelle tore her eyes from the ground.  “Oh, um, sure, if you want.”

“It’s not that _I_ want it, I just thought you did.”

“I don’t really care.”

Rita rolled her eyes.  “Well, what do you want for dinner, then?”

Estelle sighed.  “I’m sorry, Rita.  I can’t really concentrate on food right now.”

Rita was quiet for a moment and then nodded.  “I’m worried about him, too.”

Six weeks ago, Yuri said he might spend the night, but might not.  He hadn’t shown up, so she’d assumed he’d elected to skip Halure and go straight on to Dahngrest.  She’d been a little disappointed they didn’t have time to visit, but thought nothing of it.  And then… oh, she still remembered that day three weeks ago so clearly.  Karol and Judy showing up at her door, asking if Yuri was still here.  Finding out he’d never made it to Dahngrest, and then then going to Zaphias to confirm he’d left Flynn’s place on schedule.  They knew he’d reached Halure, but couldn’t find any information about where he’d gone after the knights dropped him off.  Somewhere between here and Dahngrest, he’d vanished off the face of the world.  

“Hey… is that smoke?”  Rita stood on the edge of the road by the hill.  She was pointing toward the Quoi Woods, and sure enough, a cloud of smoke drifted into the white winter sky.  

“Oh no!  Someone might be hurt.”  It sure looked like more smoke than you’d get from a campfire.  “We have to go check it out.”

Rita seemed to follow her logic, and made no argument as they ran through town toward the exit.  Just as they reached the road out of town, a man carrying a bag came running from the other direction to join them. Estelle glanced his way as they set off toward the smoke and then remembered who he was.

“Oh, you’re Doctor Ryan, aren’t you?”

The older man paused and looked over.  “Ah, good evening, Your Highness.  Yes, I am.  Did you see the smoke as well?”

She nodded.  “I was worried some travellers in the woods got caught in a fire.  I wanted to help.”

Ryan smiled at her as they stomped through the snow as quickly as possible.  “That’s very kind of you.  There’s actually a family that lives out this way.  When I saw the smoke, I worried there was trouble at their farm.  They keep to themselves mostly, so I didn’t expect anyone else to pay them much heed.”

“No one at all?” Rita asked.  

There was no road this way.  If there was, it hadn’t been maintained since the snow fell.  They had to trudge through almost a foot of it, and Estelle wondered what kind of family hadn’t come into town in the five days since the snow fell.  

“They’re an odd bunch, the Messers.”  Ryan led the way toward the smoke.  “Mr. Messer always unnerved me a bit.”

The dark grey cloud of smoke hung over the woods and Estelle could smell it from here.  Visions of injured people flashed through her mind as she struggled to move faster through the snow.  What had caused the fire?  A cooking accident?  “What about him was unnerving?”

“Well…” Ryan pursed his lips and sought an appropriate answer.   “I always felt  there was something strange about the way he treated his daughter. Whenever I saw them together, it felt very icy.  I don’t think he treated her well.”

The house came into view over a snowdrift.  Flames licked the charred frame of a collapsed house.  Estelle’s heart throbbed; she really hoped no one had been inside when the second story caved in.  “How many people lived there?  Did they have any children?”

“Yes, two.  There’s a young boy, Jonas, and their grown daughter, Clara.  She’s a grown woman now, but she still lives at home.”

Oh, no, she hated to hear that even one child lived in that house.  “And she doesn’t have a family of her own that might have been in there?”

Ryan shook his head.  “No.  She was an odd one, that’s for sure.”  His eyes filled with sadness as he looked at the smoldering house.  “I do hope nothing’s happened to her, though.  I’ve known her since she was quite small.  She used to come to my office regularly.”

“What for?” Rita asked.  “Was she sick?”

“In a way... she always came in with stomach problems and her mother complained she’d been up vomiting all night.  This lasted most of her childhood.”

“What was she sick with?” Estelle asked.

Ryan’s expression darkened.  “You want my honest opinion?  Poison.  I could never prove it, but I always suspected Mrs. Messer was giving her something toxic.”

Estelle’s face snapped to his and a puff of fog escaped her mouth in a gasp.  “What?  Her own daughter?  But why?”

Ryan sighed and shook his head.  “Sympathy, I imagine.  The chance to cry in a doctor’s office about her poor daughter, be comforted by nurses, care for her daughter and show how much she loves her.  What a good mother she is.  I tried to get Clara to tell me the truth once she got older, but she just kept going along with it.  I never did understand it, but she was always totally bewildered and appalled when I tried to talk to her alone about the possibility her parents were abusing her.”

Estelle gazed at the smoking farmhouse with a long face.  She thought of her own childhood, being raised without any friends, so isolated from community.  She’d learned who she was through books, stories taught her what the world was like.  Had Clara grown up on this tiny farm, isolated by her parents, exposed to no one but toxic family and her own thoughts?  Estelle was driven now not just by a need to help the family with any injuries from the fire, but to find this young woman and show her what life was supposed to be like.  

“Estelle, look.”  Rita grabbed her arm and pointed.  “Someone’s outside.”

Estelle saw the figure lying in the snow.  They weren’t moving, but she hoped this meant someone at least had escaped the burning house.  It was the kick she needed to power over the snow and race toward the house in long bounds.  Snow fell into her boots and chilled her ankles, but the heat from the house warmed her face.  

“Are you ok?!” she cried as she got closer, hoping they were conscious.  In case they could hear her but not reply, she kept talking.  “Don’t worry, you’re going to be ok.”  She reached their side and even over the smell of smoke and burning wood, the reek of sweat and filth hit her nose.  Part of her hesitated to move them until she knew their injuries, but she couldn’t leave them face-down in the snow any longer or they’d freeze.  She grabbed their shoulder as gently as she could and pulled.

Estelle shrieked and dropped him when she saw the victim’s face.  “Yuri!  Yuri!”  That scream got Rita running faster and Estelle turned Yuri over as quickly as she could.  He was unconscious, and his face was pale as paper.  But there was pink around his nose and the tiniest mist of breath escaped his cracked lips - he was alive.

But barely.  The skin that wasn’t ghostly pale was covered in bruises and cuts.  His lips were chapped and he was thinner than she’d ever seen.  She could tell from his hair and the smell that he hadn’t bathed in weeks and a glance down his body showed raw, torn skin encircling his wrists and blood-stained bandages around his fingers.  

“Oh, Yuri, what happened to you?” She couldn’t even focus on the rest of the house now and pulled him against her chest.  Later, she could wonder about why he was here and how he’d been so injured, but for now she could only think about how elated she was to have found him.  

There was a groan from her chest and Estelle away to see that Yuri’s eyes had cracked open.  He stared at her without expression while Estelle couldn’t shake the beam from her face.  

“Yuri?”

“It’s really him?” Rita had run up to her now.  “He’s alive?”  She seemed to be trying to hide how relieved she was, but Estelle could hear the gratitude in her voice.  

“Can you hear me, Yuri?  I’ve got you.”  She supported him on her lap, not even noticing how cold her legs were sunk into the snow.  “I don’t know what happened to you, but it’s going to be ok now.  We’re going to take you home.”

He didn’t say anything at all, but his eyes focused on her face.  It was shock, she assumed. Whatever had happened to him, she could tell from his condition he’d suffered horribly.  They just needed to get him home, fix any injuries, clean him up, and get him sorted out.  He was alive, and that was what mattered.  

Doctor Ryan’s footsteps crunched as he walked toward them.  Guiltily, Estelle remembered that there were other victims of this fire, too.  She looked up at him, but before she could ask, he shook his head.  

“I don’t think there’s anyone still alive here, miss.  I was able to get into the kitchen - the fire seems to have started around the basement entrance because everything is already burned to cinders there.  There was a charred body on the steps.”

Estelle grimaced.  “And… the rest of the family?”

He heaved a sigh.  “There are human remains in the barn.  You don’t want to see them.”

Rita made a disgusted face.  “Were they that badly burned?”

Ryan gave her a steady look and carefully said, “No… it wasn’t the fire that did that to them.  Who is this?”

Estelle wanted to ask about the Messers, but Ryan clearly didn’t want to talk about what he’d found in the barn and, guilty as it made her feel, she wanted to focus on Yuri, too.  “This is our friend.  He’s been missing for six weeks.  I have no idea how he ended up here, but he’s hurt badly.”

Ryan nodded.  “Right.  He’s the only one living here, so let’s find some wood to use as a sled and get him back to town.”

It didn’t take long to put together a rudimentary sled from a charred door and some rope at the side of the house.  They dragged Yuri onto it, and Estelle felt a tiny shiver as his empty eyes fell on her.  He’d been awake for the entire process of building a sled, but said nothing and didn’t move until they lifted him.  

 _He’s been deeply traumatized,_ Estelle told herself as the prepared to set off for town.   _Probably not even fully aware of his surroundings right now… once we get him patched up back in town and the shock of whatever was done to him wears off, he’ll be back to his old self in no time._

It was a pleasant thought, and she really did believe it.  There was only one thing that played in the back of her mind, and it wasn’t even a concrete thought.  It was just… and she was sure this was just an effect of the flames still burning on part of the house and toying with the light… but there was just something _off_ about Yuri’s shadow.  


End file.
